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ROBERT 
UNDERWOOD 



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COJFXRIGHT DEPOSfT. 



COLLECTED POEMS, 1881-1919 



THE PRICE OF THE PRES- 
ENT VOLUME IS $4.00, POST- 
AGE PREPAID TO ANY AD- 
DRESS. ALL THE SEPARATE 
VOLUMES OF WHICH IT IS 
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NOW OUT OF PRINT. 



COLLECTED POEMS 

1881-1919 

BY 
ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON 

Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 

COMPRISING HIS VOLUMES: 

"THE WINTER HOUR," "SONGS OF LIBERTY," 

"SAINT-GAUDENS: AN ODE, AND OTHER VERSE," 

"POEMS OF WAR AND PEACE." "ITALIAN RHAPSODY," 

AND OTHER POEMS NOT BEFORE COLLECTED 



[jirynfl 



NEW HAVEN 

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1920 






3« 






Copyright, 1892, 1897, 1902, 1908, 1910, 1913, 1916, 1917, 1919, by 
Robert Underwood Johnson 

Copyright, 1909, by Harper & Brothers 



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©CI.A561396 



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THIS COLLECTION IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
TO MY SON 

OWEN JOHNSON 

AND TO THE LOVELY AND ABIDING 

MEMORY OF 

CECILE DE LAGARDE JOHNSON 






CONTENTS 



I. The Winter Hour, and Other Poems. 



PAGE 



Invocation: To the Gorse 1 

The Winter Hour 3 

With Interludes: 

Hearth-Song 4 

The Lost Rose 9 

A Madonna of Dagnan-Bouveret .... 15 

Love in Italy 24 

A Spring Prelude 28 

Before the Blossom 30 

Love in the Calendar 32 

A September Violet 34 

September's Eve .36 

October 38 

In November 39 

On Nearing Washington 41 

" As a Bell in a Chime " 42 

In the Dark 44 

Good Measure of Love 47 

Noblesse Oblige 49 

On a Candidate Accused of Youth. (Theodore 

Roosevelt: 1886.) 50 

Washington Hymn. (Sung at the Laying of 
V 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

the corner-stone of the Washington Me- 
morial Arch, New York, May 30, 1890.) . 51 
To Ralph Waldo Emerson. (On the Death of 

Garfield.) 53 

Illusions 55 

To-morrow 56 

Inscription for a Burial Urn 57 

Quality 58 

Luck and Work 60 

On a Great Poet's Obscurity 61 

Written in Emerson's Poems 62 

Amiel. (The "Journal Intime.") ..... 64 
"The Guest of the Evening." (Read at the 
dinner to Richard Watson Gilder, on his 

birthday, February 8, 1884.) 65 

Salvini 66 

For Tears 67 

Apprehensions 68 

Browning at Asolo 69 

At Sea 71 

Moods of the Soul 72 

I. In Time of Victory. 
II. In Time of Defeat. 

To Leonora. (At her Debut, October 18, 1891.) 75 

Herbert Mapes. (Drowned August 23, 1891.) 76 

A Wish for New France 77 

Divided Honors. (Written for the dinner to 
James Whitcomb Riley at Indianapolis, Oc- 
tober 18, 1888.) 78 

A Tracer for J*** B******** 83 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

II. Songs of Liberty, and Other Poems. 

Apostrophe to Greece. (Inscribed to the Greek 
People on the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of 

their Independence.) 93 

Song of the Modern Greeks 103 

To the Housatonic at Stockbridge 105 

Farewell to Italy 108 

A Chopin Fantasy 112 

In Tesla's Laboratory 116 

The Wistful Days 117 

"Love Once was Like an April Dawn" . . .118 

An Irish Love-Song 119 

"Oh, Waste no Tears" 121 

Her Smile 123 

Song for the Guitar 124 

Ursula 125 

A Dark Day 126 

The Surprised Avowal 127 

The Blossom of the Soul 129 

" I Journeyed South to Meet the Spring " . .130 

Paraphrases from the Servian of Zmai Iovan 
Iovanovich (after Literal Translations by 
Nikola Tesla) : 

Introductory Note on Zmai by Mr. Tesla . .135 

The Three Giaours 141 

Luka Filipov 146 

A Mother of Bosnia 150 

The Monster 154 

Two Dreams 157 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Mysterious Love 159 

The Coming of Song 161 

Curses 163 

A Fairy from the Sun-shower 164 

" Why," you ask, " has not the Servian Per- 
ished?" 165 

" I Begged a Kiss of a Little Maid " . . . . 166 

Why the Army Became Quiet 167 

The Gipsy Praises his Horse 168 



The Voice of Webster 177 

Hands across Sea 191 

III. Italian Rhapsody, and Other Poems. 

Poems of Italy: 

Italian Rhapsody 207 

The Hour of Awe 215 

Titian's Two Loves, in the Borghese . . . .217 

Poems on Public Events : 

The Listening Sword 221 

Dewey at Manila 222 

The Welcome of Our Tears 227 

An English Mother 229 

"The White Man's Burden" 232 

On Reading of Atrocities in War 234 

The Keeper of the Sword 236 

Remember Waring! 237 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

Poems of Heart and Soul: 

To One Born on the Last Day of November . . 243 

Music and Love 245 

At a Concert 246 

After the Song (To E. J. W.) 247 

Song for Youth 248 

Song of Remembrance 250 

Star-Song 251 

Song for a Wedding-day 252 

With a Toast to the Bride 253 

To June 255 

A Lover's Answer 256 

The Guest 257 

To One who Complained of a Lover's Persis- 
tence 258 

Interpreters 259 

The Tryst 260 

" Love the Conqueror Came to Me " . . . . 261 

The Stronger Summons 263 

The Flower of Fame 264 

The Dread before Great Joy 266 

Reincarnation 269 

Premonitions 270 

IV. Moments of Italy, and Other Poems. 

Moments of Italy: 

To One Who Never Got to Rome (Edmund 

Clarence Stedman) 275 

The Spanish Stairs 279 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Name Writ in Water .280 

Spring at the Villa Conti 282 

Como in April 284 

The Vines that Missed the Bees 285 

The Poet in the Children's Eyes 286 

Poems of Moral Beauty or Conflict: 

To Dreyfus Vindicated ........ 287 

The Absent Guest (Edward MacDowell) . . .291 
The Czar's Opportunity ........ 293 

The Lover of his Kind 295 

Together 297 

Something in Beauty Binds us to the Good . . 298 

On a Lady's Chatelaine Mirror 300 

The Scar 301 

Compelling Love .......... 302 

The Marching-Song 305 

Recognition 308 

A Message Back to Youth 310 

Miscellaneous Poems: 

Daphne . ... . . . 313 

The True Bibliophile 315 

"Pelleas et Melisande " 318 

Waters of Song 319 

V. Saint-Gaudens : An Ode. 

Saint-Gaudens v . . 325 



CONTENTS 



XI 



VI. Later Poems of Occasion: 

A Memory of Brittany 343 

Pretty Kitty Pickering 346 

To a Maple Leaf in Autumn 347 

The Message of Fulton. (Acrostic, read at 
the launching of the new " Clermont," July 

10, 1909.) 349 

The Call to the Colors 350 

To New York, Awakening. (Read at the din- 
ner of the Aldine Club to District-Attorney 
Charles S. Whitman, November 22, 1912.) 353 
To One Who Despaired of the Republic . . 354 
The Vision of Gettysburg (1863-1913) . . 356 

VII. Poems of War and Peace: 

Panama Ode: Goethals of Panama . . . 367 
The Corridors of Congress 380 

VIII. Poems of the Great War: 

The Cost 387 

To the Peace Palace at The Hague . . . 389 

Rheims 390 

To the Spirit of Byron (Belgium) .... 393 

The New World 395 

The Haunting Face (On the Portrait of Dean 

Hodges, a Child lost in the Lusitania) . . 396 

Edith Cavell 398 



xii CONTENTS 

Shakespeare (Written by Invitation of the 
British Committee of the Shakespeare Ter- 
centenary Celebration) 399 

Embattled France 401 

IX. Poems chiefly of Friendship or Admira- 
tion: 

Quid pro Quo 407 

A Song of Parting 409 

Reading Horace 410 

Gifts 413 

Oriole and Poet 414 

The Song of Any Lover 415 

A Prayer in the Dark . 416 

Karl Bitter (Read at the Memorial Meeting in 

his Honor) 417 

The President (The Panama Tolls) .... 419 

Constance 420 

Love-Letters at Auction 421 

The Laggard Poet 422 

X. Later Poems of the Great War: 

To Paderewski, Patriot 425 

The New Slavery (The Belgian Expatriations) 426 
The Price of Honor (The Colombian Indem- 
nity) 429 

The Answer of the Lord 431 



CONTENTS xiii 

To the First Gun 434 

The Leader (President Wilson) .... 436 

The Sword of Lafayette 438 

To Russia New and Free 440 

The Victor of the Marne 442 

Two Flags upon Westminster Towers . . . 445 

The Crowned Republic (Italy) 446 

Hymn for America ("Where's the man, in 

all the earth") 449 

A Song for America ("How comely is our 

motherland") 450 

America in France 451 

To the Spirit of Luther 453 

XI. Miscellaneous Poems: 

A Teacher 457 

To a Poet at the Piano 460 

To a Student of Kant 461 

"And Then?" 462 

The Plea of the Defendant ("All I did was 

growl a little bit") 464 

Carpe Diem 466 

The Little Room of Dreams 467 

To the American Poets of To-day . . . . 471 
The Knights of the New Chivalry .... 473 

XII. Poems of Italy in War-time: 

Visions of Italy 477 



xiv CONTENTS 

The Traitors of Caporetto 487 

To Italy 491 

Italia Redenta 492 

XIII. Latest War-Time Poems: 

The Ship of Liberty 497 

The Flag We Love so Well 499 

Interlude 501 

The Marne 503 

To the Returning Brave 506 

The Goal 509 

" Listen to Yo' Gyarden Angel " . . . . .510 

To an Unknown Poet 5 J 3 

Philopoena 5*4 

The Call to the Reservists S*S 

Armenia 5*7 

The Spoils of War 519 

Maxima Carta 520 

The Fountains of Ashokan 521 

The Only Doll in the Valley 523 

Cecile 527 



1 

THE WINTER HOUR 

AND OTHER POEMS 



TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER 



INVOCATION: TO THE GORSE 



When the gorse is out of bloom, then love is out of season."- 

English Proverb. 



Hardy gorse, that all year long 
Blooms upon the English moor, 
Let me set thee at the door 

Of this little book of song. 

When the dreary winter lowers, 
Vainly dost thou seek a fellow 
To thy blossom brave and yellow — > 

Color of the cheeriest flowers. 

Thou of love perennial art 

Such a symbol that they say: 
" When no gorse-bloom greets the day, 
There 's no love in any heart." 

i 



INVOCATION 

Thus all days are Love's and thine.- 
Spicy flower on thorny branch, 
In Love's service thou art stanch — ; 

Wilt thou, wilding, enter mine? 



THE WINTER HOUR 



THE WINTER HOUR 



Of all the hours of day or night 
Be mine the winter candle-light, 
When Day's usurpers of Love's throne — 
Fame, Pride, and tyrant Care — are flown, 
And hearts are letters of hid desire 
Yielding their secrets at the fire. 
Now beauty in a woman's face 
Glows with a sympathetic grace, 
And friend draws closer unto friend, 
Like travelers near a journey's end; 
In casual talk some common hope 
Finds fresher wing and farther scope; 
The eye has language fit to speak 
Thoughts that by day 't were vain to seek 
Out of their silence; and the hand 
Grasps with a comrade's sure demand. 
Pile high the winter's cheer and higher, — ; 
The world is saved, not lost, by fire! 



THE WINTER HOUR 



HEARTH-SONG 

When November's night comes down 
With a dark and sudden frown, 
Like belated traveler chill 
Hurrying o'er the tawny hill, — 

Higher, higher 
Heap the pine-cones in a pyre! 
Where's a better friend than fire? 

Song's but solace for a day; 
Wine 's a traitor not to trust ; 
Love 's a kiss and then away ; 
Time 's a peddler deals in dust. 

Higher, higher 
Pile the driftwood in a pyre! 
Where's a firmer friend than fire? 

Knowledge was but born to-night; 
Wisdom 's to be born to-morrow ; 
One more log — and banish sorrow, 
One more branch — the world is bright. 

Higher, higher 
Crown with balsam-boughs the pyre ! 
Where 's an older friend than fire? 



THE WINTER HOUR 



O silent hour that sacred is 

To our sincerest reveries ! — 

When peering Fancy fondly frames 

Swift visions in the oak-leaved flames; 

When Whim has magic to command 

Largess and lore from every land, 

And Memory, miser-like, once more 

Counts over all her hoarded store. 

Now phantom moments come again 

In a long and lingering train, 

As not content to be forgot — 

(O Death! when I remember not 

Such moments, may my current run, 

Alph-like, to thy oblivion ! ) : 

The summer bedtime, when the sky — 

The boy's first wonder — gathers nigh, 

And cows are lowing at the bars, 

And fireflies mock the early stars 

That seem to hang just out of reach — 

Like a bright thought that lacks of speech: 

The wistful twilight's tender fall, 

When to the trundle comes the call 



THE WINTER HOUR 

Of fluting robins, mingling sweet 
With voices down the village street; 
The drowsy silence, pierced with fear 
If evil-omened owl draw near, 
Quaking with presage of the night; 
The soft surrender when, from sight 
Hid like a goddess in a cloud, 
Comes furtive Sleep, with charm endowed 
To waft the willing child away 
Far from the margin of the day, 
Till chanticleer with roystering blare 
Of reveille proclaims the glare. 
Remember ? — how can one forget 
(Since Memory 's but Affection's debt) 
Those faery nights that hold the far, 
Soft rhythm of the low guitar, 
When not more sweetly zephyr blows 
And not more gently Afton flows 
Than the dear mother's voice, to ease 
The hurts of day with brook and breeze, 
To soothing chords that haunt the strings 
Like shadows of the song she sings! 
And as the music's lullaby 
Locks down at last the sleepy eye, 



THE WINTER HOUR 

Green visions of a distant hill 

The fancy of the singer fill, 

While spreads Potomac's pausing stream, 

And moonlight sets her heart adream 

Of that old time when love was made 

With valentine and serenade. 

Now, too, come bedtimes when the stair 
Was never climbed alone. — Ah, where, 
Beyond the midnight and the dawn, 
Has now that other footstep gone? 
Does sound or echo more reveal 
When thirty winters may not steal 
That still-returning tread, — that voice, 
That made the timid child rejoice 
Against the terrors of the wind, — 
That tender tone that smoothed the mind? 
Great heart of pity ! it was then 
God seemed a father, denizen 
Of His own world, not chained to feet 
Of some far, awful judgment-seat. 
Then was revealed the reverent soul 
Whom creed nor doubt could from the 
goal 



THE WINTER HOUR 

Of goodness swerve; who need not bend 
To be of each just cause the friend. 
Of whose small purse and simple prayer 
The neediest had the largest share; 
Beloved of child, and poor, and slave, 
Nor yet more lovable than brave; 
Whom place could not allure, nor pelf, — 
To all men generous save himself; 
Whose passion Freedom was — with no 
Heat-lightning rage devoid of blow, 
But as a bridegroom might defend 
His chosen, to the furious end. 

Still other moments come apace, 
Each with fond, familiar face: 
The pleasures of an inland boy 
To whom great Nature was a toy 
For which all others were forsook — 
A spirit blithesome as a brook 
Whose song in ripples crystalline 
Doth flow soft silences between; 
The dormant soul's slow wakenings 
To dimly-apprehended things; 



THE WINTER HOUR 

The sudden vision in the night 
As by a conflagration's light; 
The daily miracle of breath; 
The awe of battle and of death; 
The tears of grief at Sumter's gun, 
The tears of joy when war was done, 
And all the fainting doubt that masked 
As hope when news of war was asked. 
And oh! that best-remembered place, 
That perfect moment's melting grace, — 
The look, the smile, the touch, the kiss, 
The halo of self-sacrifice, — 
When Nature's passion, bounteous June, 
To Love's surrender added boon, 
As though the heir of every age 
Had come into his heritage. 

THE LOST ROSE 

There was a garden sweet and gay, 
Where rarest blossoms did delay 
The look that Fanny bent to find 
The flower fairest to her mind, 
Till, at her word, I plucked for her 
A rose of York-and-Lancaster. 



I0 THE WINTER HOUR 

The red did with the white agree, 

Like passion blent in purity; 

And as she blushed and blushed the more, 

Till she was like the bloom she bore, 

I said, " Dear heart, I too prefer 

The rose of York-and-Lancaster." 

'T is years ago and miles away! 
For oh ! nor rose nor maid could stay 
To freshen other Junes. And yet 
How few who do not quite forget ! — 
Or know to which the words refer: 
"Sweet rose of York-and-Lancaster." 

In vain, when roses do appear 

Upon the bosom of the year, 

I search the tangle and the town 

Among the roses of renown, 

And still the answer is — " Oh, sir, 

We know no York-and-Lancaster." 

But ah, my heart, it knows the truth, 
And where was sown that seed of youth ; 
And though the world have lost the rose, 
There 's still one garden where it grows — 
Where every June it breathes of her, 
My rose of York-and-Lancaster. 



THE WINTER HOUR II 

m 

Now call the Muses' aid to flout 
The bleak storm's roaring rage without; 
And bring it hail, or bring it snow, 
It shall be Love's delight to show 
What Fire and two defenders dare 
Against the legions of the air, 
•Whose sharpest arrows shall not find 
Cleft in the armor of the mind. 
Why dread we Winter's deep distress, 
His pale and frigid loneliness, 
When here at hand are stored, in nooks 
All climes, all company, in books! 
A moving tale for every mood, 
Shakspere for all, — the fount and food 
Of gentle living, — Fancy's link 
'Twixt what we are and what we think, — 
Fellow to stars that nightly plod 
Old Space, yet kindred to the clod. 
Choose now from his world's wizard play 
What is frolicsome and gay; 
'T was for such evening he divined 
Not Juliet but Rosalind. 



12 THE WINTER HOUR 

Put the storied sorrow down, — 
Not to-night, with Jove-like frown, 
Shall the mighty Tuscan throw 
Fateful lightnings at his foe, 
Nor Hawthorne bend his graceful course 
To follow motive to its source. 
No, let gladness greet the ear: 
Cervantes' wit, or Chaucer's cheer, 
Or Lamb's rich cordial, pure and sweet, 
Where aromatic tinctures meet; 
Or princely Thackeray, whose pages 
Yield humor wiser than the sages; 
Or, set in cherished place apart, 
Poets that keep the world in heart: 
Milton's massive lines that pour 
Like waves upon a windward shore; 
Wordsworth's refuge from the crowd — 
The peace of noon-day's poised cloud; 
That flaming torch a jealous line 
Passed on to Keats from Beauty's shrine; 
Visions of Shelley's prophet-soul, 
That, seeing part, could sing the whole, 
Most like a lark that mounts so high 
He sees not earth but from the sky. 



THE WINTER HOUR 13 

And of the bards who in the grime 
And turmoil of our changing time 
Have kept the faith of men most pure 
The three whose harps shall last endure: 
Browning, Knight of Song, — so made 
By Nature's royal accolade, — 
Whose lines, as life-blood full and warm, 
Search for the soul within the form, 
And in the treasures of whose lore 
Is Love, Love, ever at the core; 
Tennyson, of the silver string, 
Wisest of the true that sing, 
And truest singer of the wise; 
And he whose " stairway of surprise " 
Soars to an outlook whence appear 
All best things, fair, and sure, and near. 



IV 



Upon the wall some impress fine 
Of Angelo's majestic line — 
Seer or sibyl, dark with fate; 
Near, and all irradiate, 



14 THE WINTER HOUR 

Bellini's holy harmonies, 

Bringing the gazer to his knees; 

One group to hint from what a height 

Titian with color dowers the sight; 

A pageant of Carpaccio, 

Flushed with an autumn sunset-glow; 

Then, of Luini's pensive race, 

The Columbine's alluring grace; 

And, echo of an age remote, 

Beato's pure and cloistered note. 

And be not absent from the rest 

Some later flame of beauty (blest 

As a new star) , lest it be said 

That Art, that had its day, is dead. 

Let Millet speak in melting tone — 

Voicing the life that once was stone, 

Ere Toil had found another dawn 

Of Bethlehem at Barbizon. 

Nor is it winter while Dupre 

With daring sunlight leads the way 

Into the woodland rich and dim; 

Who love the forest, follow him; 

And they who lean the ear to reach 

The whispering breath of Nature's speech, 



THE WINTER HOUR 15 

May with Daubigny wait the night 
Beside a lake of lambent light 
And marged darkness — at the hour 
( Soul of the evening ! ) when the power 
Of man, that morn with empire shod, 
Is shattered by a thought of God! 
And ah, one more: we will not wait 
For Death to let us call him great, 
But, taking counsel of the heart 
Stirred by his pure and perfect art, 
Among the masters make a place 
For Dagnan's fair Madonna's face. 



A MADONNA OF DAGNAN-BOUVERET 

Oh, brooding thought of dread! 
Oh, calm of coming grief! 
Oh, mist of tears unshed 
Above that shining head 
That for an hour too brief 
Lies on thy nurturing knee! 
How shall we pity thee, 
Mother of sorrows — sorrows yet to bel 



16 THE WINTER HOUR 

That babyhood unknown 
With all of bright or fair 
That lingers in our own 
By every hearth has shone. 
Each year that light we share 
As Bethlehem saw it shine. 
Be ours the comfort thine, 
Mother of consolations all divine! 



Nor be the lesser arts forgot 
On which Life feeds and knows it not, 
That everywhere from roof to portal 
Beauty may speak of the immortal: 
Forms that the fancy over-fill; 
Colors that give the sense a thrill; 
Soft lights that fall through opal glass 
On mellow stuffs and sturdy brass; 
Corners of secrecy that invite 
Comfort, the handmaid of Delight; 
The very breath of sculptures old 
Held poised within a perfect mold; 



TEE WINTER HOUR 17 

A dainty vase of Venice make, 

Fashioned for its one rose's sake — 

Ay, winter's miracle of flowers 

To cheat the mood and mask the hours: 

Love's velvet-petaled pledge of June, 

That, on the wings of Passion strewn, 

Made courtly Persia conqueror 

Of thrice the world she lost in war; — 

Jonquils, that Tuscan sunshine hold 

Within their happy hearts of gold; — 

Narcissus, such as still are found 

By Marathon's mountain-envied mound — 

Food of the soul, well bought with bread, 

As sage Hippocrates hath said. 

All these perchance shall faintly yield 

Odors from some Sicilian field 

Where young Theocritus deep-strayed 

In blooms celestial — where his shade, 

Haunting his storied Syracuse, 

Finds balm for his neglected Muse. 

Add wanton smilax to entwine 

Your Dancing Faun or God of Wine, 

And you shall summon in a band 

The joys of every summer land. 



18 THE WINTER HOUR 



VI 



But there 's a vision stirs the heart 

Deeper than books or flowers or art, — 

When Music, mistress of the mind, 

Lender not borrower from the Wind, 

Rival of Water and of Light, 

Adds her enchantment to the Night. 

What thoughts! what dreams! what ecstasies 

When heart and fingers touch the keys! 

Across what gulf of fate Love springs 

To Love, if Love caress the strings ! 

By this mysterious amulet 

One shall remember or forget; 

When words and smiles and tears shall fail, 

The might of Music shall prevail; 

Shall move alike the wise and weak; 

All dialects alike shall speak; 

Outglow the rainbow to the doomed, — 

Consuming all, be unconsumed; 

Shall save a nation in its throes, 

Luring with concord grappling foes; 

Shall madden thus, yet shall be glad 

(Oh, paradox!) to soothe the mad. 



THE WINTER HOUR 19 

This rhythmic language made to reach 
Beyond the reticence of speech — 
Bland as the breeze of May it sighs, 
Or rolls reverberant till the skies 
Tremble with majesty! Not the mote 
Most hid of all creation's rote 
But holds some message that shall be 
Transmuted into harmony. 
Already, since the lisping-time 
When music was but chant or chime, 
What spirits have to man been lent 
From God's discordless firmament ! — 
Beethoven, brother of the Nine, 
But with a birthright more divine, — 
Whose harmonies that heavenward wend 
Wings to the laden spirit lend 
Until, serenely mounting higher, 
It melts into the starry choir; 
Wagner, in whom the Passions meet 
To throw themselves at Music's feet, — 
Whose murmurings have charm to wring 
From Love the secret of the Spring, — 
And in whose clamor sounds the siege 
Of heaven when Lucifer was liege. 



20 THE WINTER HOUR 

Handel, whose aspirations seem 

Like steps of gold in Jacob's dream; 

Mozart, simplest of the great, 

Heir of Melody's estate, 

Who did blithe pipes of Pan prolong 

And heighten to a seraph song. 

Schumann, rare poet, with a lyre 

Stringed in Imagination's fire; 

And oh, that one of human strain! — 

Chopin, beloved child of pain, 

To whom the whole of Love was known 

Marvel, and mystery, and moan, 

The joy secure, the jealous dart 

Deep-ambushed in the doubting heart, 

And all the perilous delight 

That waits on doubt, as dawn on night. 

Ah, who shall wake the charm that lies 
Past what is written for the eyes 
In such a scroll? The poet's need 
Is that a poet's heart should read. 
Happy the winter hour and fleet 
When flame and waiting passion meet 



THE WINTER HOUR 21 

In her pure fire whose chords betray 
The St. Cecilia of our day! 
Oh, velvet of that Saxon hand 
So lately iron to command ! — 
Like, at the shower's sudden stop, 
The softness of the clinging drop. 
What tender notes the trance prolong 
Of that famed rhythmic cradle-song ! 
How faery is her woven spell 
Of minuet or tarantelle ! 
Who would return to earth when she 
Transports us with a rhapsody ! 
And when in some symphonic burst 
Of joy her spirit is immersed, 
That path celestial fain to share, 
We vow to breathe but noble airl 



vn 

Warmed with melody like wine, 
Lighted by the friendly shine 
Of the rich-replenished hearth, 
Let us drink of wine and mirth 



22 THE WINTER HOUR 

While waning evening's aftermath 

Grows pleasant as a winding path 

With wit's surprises and the tale 

Adventurous, spreading sudden sail 

For Arcady and hallowed haunts 

Along the shores of old Romance: 

Now shall fare the fancy forth 

To pillared grottoes of the north, 

Where circling waters come again 

Like thoughts within a sleepless brain; 

Or, coursing down a softer coast 

Whose beauty is the Old World's boast, 

Shall pause for words while memory's flame 

Kindles at Taormina's name. 

And now in shifting talk appears 
Pomp of cities clad with years : 
Gay or gloomy with her skies, 
Gray Paris like an opal lies 
Sparkling on the front of France. 
Avignon doth hold a lance 
In a tourney-list with Nimes. 
Fair Seville basks in helpless dream 



THE WINTER HOUR 23 

Of conquest, as in caged air 

Dreams the tamed lion of his lair. 

Regal Genoa still adorns 

Her ancient throne; and Pisa mourns. 

Now we traverse holy ground 

Where three miracles are found: 

One of beauty — when with dyes 

Of her own sunset Venice vies. 

One of beauty and of power — 

Rome, the crumbled Babel-tower 

Of centuries piled on centuries — 

Scant refuge from Oblivion's seas 

That swept about her. And the third ? — 

O heart, fly homeward like a bird, 

And look, from Bellosguardo's goal, 

Upon a city with a soul! 

Who that has climbed that heavenly 

height 
When all the west was gold with light, 
And nightingales adown the slope 
To listening Love were lending hope, 
Till they by vesper bells were drowned, 
As though by censers filled with sound — 



24 THE WINTER HOUR 

Who — who would wish a worthier end 
To every journey? or not blend 
With those who reverently count 
This their Transfiguration Mount? 



LOVE IN ITALY 

They halted at the terrace wall; 

Below, the towered city lay; 
The valley in the moonlight's thrall 

Was silent in a swoon of May. 
As hand to hand spoke one soft word 

Beneath the friendly ilex-tree, 
They knew not, of the flame that stirred, 

What part was Love, what Italy. 

They knew what makes the moon more bright 

Where Beatrice and Juliet are, — 
The sweeter perfume in the night, 

The lovelier starlight in the star; 
And more that glowing hour did prove, 

Beneath the sheltering ilex-tree, — 
That Italy transfigures Love, 

As Love transfigures Italy. 



THE WINTER HOUR 2$ 



vm 

And thou, who art my winter hour — 

Book, picture, music, friend, and flower — 

If on such evening, dear, I trace 

Paths far from Love's divine embrace, 

Wandering till long absence grows 

Into brief death — less death's repose — 

Let me be missed with love and cheer, 

As miss we those of yesteryear 

With whom we thought (beguiling hope!) 

To stray together down Life's slope, 

While Age came on like gentle rain. 

They who but ceased their joyous strain — 

Where may the limit to the sea 

Of their bereaving silence be? 

Yet sorrow not: we may prolong, 

If not the singer's voice, the song. 

And if beyond the glorious strife 

Of this good world, I tread new life, 

Reluctant, but, by Heaven's aid, 

With infant instinct unafraid, 



26 THE WINTER HOUR 

May Memory plead with thee to save 
Out of my song its happier stave. 
From the Dark Isthmus let not gloom 
Deepen the shadows of thy room. 
For me no ban of smile or jest: 
Life at its full is holiest. 
Let all thy days have pure employ 
In the high sanity of joy; 
Be then, as now, the friend of all, 
Thy heart a thronged confessional, 
A fount of sympathy, a store 
Of jewels at an open door. 

Here do I falter, love, for fear 

Of sacrilege to what is dear. 

Not now — not here ; some luminous time, 

Some perfect place, some fortunate rhyme 

May yield that sacrificial part 

That poets fitly give to Art. 

Ever the moment most elate 

Must for a speech sufficient wait; 

Only the happiest know, alas! 

How soundless is the brimming glass. 



THE WINTER HOUR 27 

But, though Love need nor praise nor oath, 

And silence oft is firmer troth, 

Yet know that if I come no more, 

Tis fault of sail, or sea, or shore, 

Not of the pilot, — for the heart 

Sees its way homeward from the start. 

If Death have bond that Love can break, 

It shall be broken for thy sake. 

If spirits unto mortals teach 

Some rudiment of subtler speech, 

My presence shall about thee stay 

To prompt the word it cannot say. 

So when, with late farewell and slow, 
The guests into the night shall go, 
Each pulse by sympathy more warm, 
Forgetting the forgotten storm, 
And thou alone into the blaze, 
Thrilled with the best of life, shalt gaze 
With hunger for the life divine, 
Oh, be that blessed moment mine ! — 
With thee, who art my winter hour, 
Book, picture, music, friend, and flower. 



28 A SPRING PRELUDE 



A SPRING PRELUDE 

O tardy April, is thy full choir here? 
The redbreast, picket of the swarming spring, 
Whistles a sudden chirrup of alarm 
Before his level flight; and soft at eve 
His melody, on grass half-robin high, 
Falls like a vesper's throbbings from aloft. 
The sparrow tempts the turf to faster growth 
With her coy nesting, while her happy mate, 
High in the promise-reddened maple-top, 
O'er-bubbles with ecstasies of hoarded song. 
The mellow tunings of the oriole's flute, 
Rich as his coat, foretell his summer joy 
And pitch the key of gladness for the year. 
Here is the bluebird, best of mates and sires, 
And pewee, restless as a lover's fear, 
With cousin phcebe, bleating tearfully. 
The humblebee, that, nectar-drunk, shall soon 
Linger within the sybaritic flower, 



A SPRING PRELUDE 29 

Feeds his impatience at the cautious bud; 
And from the furrow's wet and windy reach, 
Where March but lately swung his icy scythe, 
Ripples the velvet air about the cheek, 
Laden with faintest chorusings, as though 
The brimming silence overflowed in sound. 

O tardy April, is the full choir here? 

Alas for me I thou hast forgot to bring 

Out of the South one childish, bird-like voice, 

Whose absence doth delay the year, and makes 

My songs and thine but preludes till she come. 



30 BEFORE THE BLOSSOM 



BEFORE THE BLOSSOM 

In the tassel-time of Spring 
Love 's the only song to sing; 

Ere the ranks of solid shade 
Hide the bluebird's flitting wing, 

While in open forest glade 
No mysterious sound or thing 

Haunt of green has found or made, 
Love 's the only song to sing. 

Though in May each bush be dressed 
Like a bride, and every nest 

Learn Love's joyous repetend, 
Yet the half-told tale is best 

At the budding, — with its end 
Much too secret to be guessed, 

And its fancies that attend 
April's passion unexpressed. 



BEFORE THE BLOSSOM 31 

Love and Nature in the Spring 
Gave us Arcady. Still ring — 

Vales across and groves among — 
Wistful memories, echoing 

Pan's far-off and fluty song. 
Poet! nothing harsher sing; 

Be, like Love and Nature, young 
In the tassel-time of Spring. 



32 LOVE IN THECALENDAR 



LOVE IN THE CALENDAR 

When chinks in April's windy dome 

Let through a day of June, 
And foot and thought incline to roam, 

And every sound 's a tune; 
When Nature fills a fuller cup, 

And hides with green the gray, — 
Then, lover, pluck your courage up 

To try your fate in May. 

Though proud she was as sunset clad 

In Autumn's fruity shades, 
Love too is proud, and brings (gay lad!) 

Humility to maids. 
Scorn not from nature's mood to learn, 

Take counsel of the day: 
Since haughty skies to tender turn, 

Go try your fate in May. 



LOVE IN THE CALENDAR 33 

Though cold she seemed as pearly light 

Adown December eves, 
And stern as night when March winds smite 

The beech's lingering leaves; 
Yet Love hath seasons like the year, 

And grave will turn to gay, — 
Then, lover, harken not to fear, 

But try your fate in May. 

And you whose art it is to hide 

The constant love you feel : 
Beware, lest overmuch of pride 

Your happiness shall steal. 
No longer pout, for May is here, 

And hearts will have their way; 
Love *s in the calendar, my dear, 

So yield to fate — and May! 



34 A SEPTEMBER VIOLET 



A SEPTEMBER VIOLET 

For days the peaks wore hoods of cloud, 
The slopes were veiled in chilly rain; 
We said: It is the Summer's shroud, 
And with the brooks we moaned aloud,— 
Will sunshine never come again? 

At last the west wind brought us one 

Serene, warm, cloudless, crystal day, 
As though September, having blown 
A blast of tempest, now had thrown 
A gauntlet to the favored May. 

Backward to Spring our fancies flew, 
And, careless of the course of Time, 

The bloomy days began anew. 

Then, as a happy dream comes true, 
Qr as a poet finds his rhyme, — 



A SEPTEMBER VIOLET 35 

Half wondered at, half unbelieved, — 

I found thee, friendliest of the flowers ! 
Then Summer's joys came back, green-leaved, 
And its doomed dead, awhile reprieved, 
First learned how truly they were ours. 

Dear violet! Did the Autumn bring 
Thee vernal dreams, till thou, like me, 

Didst climb to thy imagining? 

Or was it that the thoughtful Spring 
Did come again, in search of thee? 



36 SEPTEMBER'S EVE 



SEPTEMBER'S EVE 



T is Nature's temple, and the day 
Is full of worship as of light. 
A sigh from now and 't will be night; 
The lordly vision will not stay. 
With dusky incense throbs the gray 
Half dome of sky. A cloistered note 
Of lingering bird-song sounds remote 
As the last echo of a hymn 
Sung in recessional, cold and dim. 
I worship, but as though the praise 
Must pass through Nature's priestly ways, 
For God doth seem as lone and far 
As yonder uncompanioned star, 
September's Eve. 



SEPTEMBER'S EVE 37 



Along the mountain's altar crest 
The russet deepens in the West, 
As when to richer chords the close 
Of noble music softly flows. 
Now speed my footsteps through the dark, 
I see my leaping hearth, and hark! 
Th' expectant children's view-halloo 
Rings out a melody of cheer. 
The rushing feet approach; I hear 
The lavish welcome panting through. 
How bright the sudden stars appear 
In friendly groups ! Now God is near. 
For Love is in her temple, too, 

September's Eve. 



38 OCTOBER 



OCTOBER 

Soft days whose silver moments keep 
The constant promise of the morn, 
When tired equinoctials sleep, 
And wintry winds are yet unborn : 
What one of all the twelve more dear — 
Thou truce and Sabbath of the year? 

More restful art thou than the May, 
And if less hope be in thy hand, 
Some cares 't were grief to understand 
Thou hidest, in the mother's way, 
With light and mist of fairy-land 
Set on the borders of the day. 

And, best of all, thou dost beguile 
With color, — friendliest thought of God! 
Than thine hath heaven itself a smile 
More rich? Are feet of angels shod 
With peace more fair? O month divine! 
Stay, till thy tranquil soul be mine. 



IN NOVEMBER 39 



IN NOVEMBER 

Here is the watershed of all the year, 
Where, by a thought's space, thoughts do start anear 
That fare most widely forth: some to the mouth 
Of Arctic rivers, some to the mellow South. 

The gaunt and wrinkled orchard shivers 'neath 
The blast, like Lear upon the English heath, 
And mossy boughs blow wild that, undistressed, 
Another spring shall hide the cheerful nest. 

All things are nearer from this chilly crown, — 
The solitude, the white and huddling town; 
And next the russet fields, of harvest shorn, 
Shines the new wheat that freshens all the morn. 

From out the bursting milkweed, dry and gray, 
The silken argosies are launched away, 
To mount the gust, or drift from hill to hill 
And plant new colonies by road and rill. 



40 IN NOVEMBER 

Ah, wife of mine, whose clinging hand I hold, 
Shrink you before the New, or at the Old? 
And those far eyes that hold the silence fast — 
Look they upon the Future, or the Past? 



ON NEARING WASHINGTON 41 



ON NEARING WASHINGTON 

City of homes and in my heart my home! 

(Though other streets exact a grudging fee) : 

How leap my pulses when afar I see 

The dawn creep whitening down thy solemn dome! 

For now my care-restricted steps may roam 
Thy urban groves — a forest soon to be — 
Where, like thy shining river, placid, free, 
Contentment dwells and beckons me to come. 

Ah, city dear to lovers ! — that dost keep 

For their delight what Mays and what Novem- 
bers I — 
Kindling the flame, and if it ever sleep, 
New-lighting it within the breathing embers; 
Dear even in their sorrow! for when they weep 
'Tis for rare joys, scarce known till Love remem- 
bers. 



42 "AS A BELL IN A CHIME" 



"AS A BELL IN A CHIME" 

As a bell in a chime 

Sets its twin-note a-ringing, 
As one poet's rhyme 

Wakes another to singing, 
So, once she has smiled, 
All your thoughts are beguiled 
And flowers and song from your childhood are bringing. 

Though moving through sorrow 
As the star through the night, 

She needs not to borrow, 
She lavishes, light. 

The path of yon star 

Seemeth dark but afar: 
Like hers it is sure, and like hers it is bright. 



"AS A BELL IN A CHIME" 43 

Each grace is a jewel 

Would ransom the town, 
Her speech has no cruel, 

Her praise is renown ; 
*T is in her as though Beauty, 
Resigning to Duty 
The scepter, had still kept the purple and crown. 



44 IN THE DARK 



IN THE DARK 

At dusk, when Slumber's gentle wand 
Beckons to quiet fields my boy, 

And day, whose welcome was so fond, 
Is slighted like a rivaled toy, — ■ 

When fain to follow, fain to stay, 

Toward night's dim border-line he peers, 

We say he fears the fading day: 
Is it the inner dark he fears ? 

His deep eyes, made for wonder, keep 
Their gaze upon some land unknown, 

The while the crowding questions leap 
That show his ignorance my own. 

For he would go he knows not where, 
And I — I hardly know the more; 

Yet what is dark and what is fair 
He would to-night with me explore. 



IN THE DARK 45 

Upon the shoals of my poor creed 
His plummet falls, but cannot rest; 

To sound the soundless is his need, 
To find the primal soul his quest. 

In vain these bird-like flutterings, 

As when through cages sighs the wind: 

My clearest answer only brings 

New depths of mystery to his mind, — 

Vague thoughts, by crude surmise beset, 
And groping doubts that loom and pass 

Like April clouds that, shifting, fret 
With tides of shade the sun-wooed grass. 

O lonely soul within the crowd 

Of souls! O language-seeking cry! 

How black were noon without a cloud 
To vision only of the eye! 

Sleep, child ! while healing Nature breaks 
Her ointment on the wounds of Thought; 

Joy, that anew with morning wakes, 

Shall bring you sight it ne'er has brought. 



46 IN THE DARK 

Lord, if there be, as wise men spake, 
No Death, but only Fear of Death, 

And when Thy temple seems to shake 
'T is but the shaking of our breath, — 

Whether by day or night we see 

Clouds where Thy winds have driven none, 

Let unto us as unto Thee 
The darkness and the light be one. 



GOOD MEASURE OF LOVE 47 



GOOD MEASURE OF LOVE 

One twilight was there when it seemed 
New stars beneath young eyelids gleamed; 

In vain the warning clock would creep 
Anear the hour of beauty-sleep; 

In vain the trundle yearned to hold 
Far-Eyes and little Heart-of-Gold ; 

And love that kisses are the stuff of 
At last for once there was enough of, 

As though of all Affection's round 
The fond climacteric had been found — 

Each childish fancy heaping more, 
Like spendthrift from a miser-store, 



48 GOOD MEASURE OF LOVE 

Till stopped by hug and stayed by kiss — 
The sweet contention ran like this: 

"How much do I love you?" (I remember but part 
Of the words of the troth of this lover) 

" I love you " — he said — " why — I love you — a heart 
Brimful and running over. 

" I love you a hundred ! " said he, with a squeeze. 

" A thousand! " said she, as she nestled; 
" A million ! " he cried in triumphant ease 
While she with the numbers wrestled. 

" Aha! I have found it! " she shouted, " aha! " 

(The red to the soft cheeks mounting) 
" I love you — I love you — I love you, Papa, 
Over the last of the counting ! " 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE 49 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE 

What is diviner than the peace of foes! 
He conquers not who does not conquer hate, 
Or thinks the shining wheels of heaven wait 
On his forgiving. Dimmer the laurel shows 

On brows that darken; and war-won repose 
Is but a truce when heroes abdicate 
To Huns — un fabling those of elder date 
Whose every corse a fiercer warrior rose. 

O ye that saved the land! Ah yes, and ye 
That mourned its saving! Neither need forget 
The price our destiny did of both demand — 

Toil, want, wounds, prison, and the lonely sea 
Of tears at home. Oh, look on these. And yet - 
Before the human fail you — quick! your hand! 



50 ON A CANDIDATE ACCUSED OF YOUTH 



ON A CANDIDATE ACCUSED OF YOUTH* 

" Too young " do they call him? Who say it? Not they 
Who have felt his hard stroke in the civic affray, 
When elders, whom veteran fighters had taught 
Till they knew all the rules by which battles are fought, 
Fumbled weakly with weapons his foresight had sought. 

Who thinks of his youthfulness ? Surely not they 
Who stood at his side through the wavering day, 
And knew the quick vision, the planning exact 
Of parry and thrust, till the stout helmet cracked 
'Neath the bold and true blow that is better than tact. 

Yea, the strength of the arm is the strength of its use, 
Not its years; and when fighting is on, better choose 
Not the rust-eaten sword from the library wall, 
But the new blade that leaps in its sheath at the call. 
Ask the foe by which weapon he fears most to fall ! 

♦Theodore Roosevelt, 1886. 



WASHINGTON HYMN 51 



WASHINGTON HYMN 

SUNG AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE 

WASHINGTON MEMORIAL ARCH, NEW YORK, MAY 

30, 1890, TO THE AIR OF THE AUSTRIAN 

HYMN BY HAYDN 

Praise to Thee, O God of Freedom, 

Praise to Thee, O God of Law, 
Thee the goal of Israel's dreaming, 

Thee the flame that Moses saw; 
Light of every patriot dungeon, 

Home of exile, hope of slave, 
Loved by just and feared by tyrant, 

Comrade of the true and brave. 

Would we pray for new defenders, 

Thou art with us ere we call ; 
Thou wilt find new ranks of heroes 

For the heroes yet to fall. 



52 WASHINGTON HYMN 

Back we look across the ages, 
Forward Thou beyond the sun, 

Yet no greater gift we ask Thee 
Than another Washington. 



TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 53 



TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

ON THE DEATH OF GARFIELD, SEPTEMBER, 1881 

Poet of every soul that grieves 
O'er death untimely: whose lament 

Lights up the farthest Dark, and leaves 
A bow across the heavens bent: 

Dead in an upper room doth lie 

A nation's hero; can it be 
Thy ear too faintly hears the cry 

The West wind utters to the sea? 

Thy Concord paean may have caught 
Glow from an elder Garfield's name: 

What fitter aureole could be sought 
For such a son than such a flame ! 



54 TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Bard of the Human : since we yearn 
For that one manly heart in vain, 
Forgive the reverent eyes that turn 

Toward the low stream in Concord plain. 

Warned by the favoring touch of Death, 
Thy Nunc Dimittis thou hast sung; 

No more the thunder's stormy breath 

Shall sweep the lyre with lightnings strung. 

And yet, for him, remains — unsigned, 
Unspoken — all thy noble praise, 

When (port more worth the cruise!) thou find 
His sail beyond the final haze; 

But us? O Seer, to whose gift 

Looms large the Future's better part, 

What other prophet voice shall lift 
This burden from the people's heart! 



ILLUSIONS 55 



ILLUSIONS 

Go stand at night upon an ocean craft, 
And watch the folds of its imperial train 
Catching in fleecy foam a thousand glows — 
A miracle of fire unquenched by sea. 
There in bewildering turbulence of change 
Whirls the whole firmament, till as you gaze, 
All else unseen, it is as heaven itself 
Had lost its poise, and each unanchored star 
In phantom haste flees to the horizon line. 

What dupes we are of the deceiving eye ! 
How many a light men wonderingly acclaim 
Is but the phosphor of the path Life makes 
With its own motion, while above, forgot, 
Sweep on serene the old unenvious stars ! 



56 TO-MORROW 



TO-MORROW 

One walks secure in wisdom-trodden ways 

That lead to peaceful nights through happy days 

Health, fame, friends, children, and a gentle wife, 

All Youth can covet or Experience praise, 

And Use withal to crown the ease of life. 

Ah, thirsting for another day, 
How dread the fear 

If he but knew the danger near! 

Another, with some old inheritance 
Of Fate, unmitigated yet by Chance, — 
Condemned by those he loves, with no appeal 
To his own fearful heart, that ever pants 
For newer circlings of the cruel Wheel ! 

Ah, thirsting for another day, 
What need of fear 

If he but knew the help that 's near? 



INSCRIPTION FOR A BURIAL URN 57 



INSCRIPTION FOR A BURIAL URN 

Fire is older than Earth, 

Swaddled her at her birth, 

Shall be her windy shroud. 

Fear whispers, Earth with fire endowed 

Is all of Life: but the Soul's Desire 

Is something other than earth and fire, 

And cannot mold or burn. 

Of this is Honor made, and Truth, 

And Love that shall out-light the star. 

Go find when these began their youth, 

Then guess their age's farthest bar; 

But look not for it in grave or urn. 



58 QUALITY 



QUALITY 



Take, ere the bee hath sipped, 

The courtly, maiden-lipped, 

And dewy oleander, 

And breathe, and dream, and wander. 

But ah ! take not another, 

Lest fragrance fragrance smother. 



n 



What all your wreathed wine 
To what I taste of mine? 
See the spilled jewels run, 
Red as an autumn sun ! — 
Each holding warm and clear 
The vintage of a year. 



QUALITY 59 



m 

Stranger, thy passing word 
My waiting heart hath stirred; 
My life to thee I lend ! 
This hour thou art my friend, 
And could not dearer be 
Loved an eternity. 



60 LUCK AND WORK 



LUCK AND WORK 

While one will search the season over 
To find the magic four-leaved clover, 
Another, with not half the trouble, 
Will plant a crop to bear him double. 



ON A GREAT POET'S OBSCURITY 6l 



ON A GREAT POET'S OBSCURITY 

What means his line ? You say none knows ? 

Yet one perhaps may learn — in time: 
For, sure, could Life be told in prose 

There were no need at all for rhyme. 

Alike two waters blunt the sight — 
The muddy shallow and the sea ; 

Here every current leads aright 
To deeps where lucent wonders be. 



62 WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S POEMS 

WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S POEMS 

(for a child) 

Midnight or morning, eve or noon, 
Torn March or clover-scented June, — 

Whene'er you stand before this gate, 
'T will open — if but not too soon 

You knock, if only not too late. 

Well shall it be if, boyhood gone, 
A boy's delight you still may own 

To play the dawn-new game of life, — 
If what is dreamed and what is known 

In your still-startled heart have strife. 

Ere you have banished Mystery, 
Or throned Distrust, or less shall be 

Stirred by the deep and fervent line 
Which is the poet's sign and fee: 

Be this your joy that now is mine. 



WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S POEMS 63 

When comes the hour, be full and bright 
Your lamp, as the wiser virgins' light! 

Choose some familiar, shrine-like nook, 
And offer up in prayer the night 

Upon the altar of this book. 

Always new earth, new heavens lie 
The apocalyptic spirit nigh : 

If such be yours, oh, while you can, 
Bid unregretted Youth good-bye, 

For morning shall proclaim you Man. 



64 AMIEL 



AMIEL 

(THE " JOURNAL INTIME ") 

A few there are who to the troubled soul 
Can lay the ear with that physician-art 
Which by a whispered accent in the heart 
Follows the lurking treason that hath stole 

Into the citadel ; — a few whose scroll 
Of warning bears our safety, — is a chart 
Of our unsounded seas, and doth impart 
Courage to hold the spirit to its goal. 

Of such is Amiel, lonely as a saint, — 

Or as an eagle dwelling on peaks, in shade 

Of clouds, which now he cleaves for one wide look 

At the green earth, now for a circle faint 

Nearer the sun. Once more has Truth betrayed 
Secrets to Sorrow not in the sibyl's book. 



"THE GUEST OF THE EVENING" 65 



"THE GUEST OF THE EVENING" 

(READ AT THE DINNER TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 
ON HIS BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1884) 

Good actions are a fruit so ripe and rare 

They bear not fingering. Let me then beware 

To touch with venturous hand this curving branch, 

Nor lean too heedlessly against the tree 

Thus, at its prime, o'erladen heavily 

With golden harvest full and sweet and stanch, — 

Lest I by some rude shock, at this light hour, 

Bring down the Virtues in a mellow shower. 

To drop the figure, friends, — let 's be content 

The guest shall fancy less than we have meant; 

Speak not too closely of his special good, 

That we are here tells more than trumpets could. 

Our friendship holds his virtues as the light 

Holds the hid rainbow — storm but makes them bright; 

The modest veil they wear I may not raise 

Lest he should blush to hear, and I to praise. 



66 SALVIA! 



SALVINI 



'Dead is old Greece," they mourned ere yet arose 
This Greek — this oak of old Achaian graft 
Seed-sown where westward tempests wept and 
laughed, 

As now when some great gust of heaven blows 

From lair levantine. How the giant grows! — 
Not to lone ruin of a withered shaft, 
But quaffing life in every leafy draught, — 

Fathered by Storm and mothered by Repose. 

Nay, doubt the Greeks are gone till, this green 
crest 
In splendor fallen, round the wrack shall be 
Prolonged, like memories of a noble guest, 

The phantom glory of the actor's day. 
Then, musing on Olympus, men shall say 
The myth of Jove took rise from lesser majesty. 



FOR TEARS 67 



FOR TEARS 

Some birches from the winter snow unbend, 
And some lie prone the happy summer long : 

Is grief but weakness? May it be, blithe friend, 
The heavier burden stays but on the strong ? 



68 APPREHENSIONS 



APPREHENSIONS 

Seven days we sought the horizon line, elate, 
Without a sea-born doubt of things to come, 
Then on the eighth, upon the sill of home, 

A fog, not of the sea, fell with a weight 

Upon our spirits. Where was noon's rich freight 
Of summer cheer, the darkness spoke of doom, 
Till thoughts familiar did such dole assume 

We could but cling before the coming fate. 

In port — what greeting? From beloved lips 

The same "All's well!" that could not charm 
our woe 

Chanted an ocean litany against harm; 
Our happiness swung forth from fear's eclipse. 

Alas ! upon a fearless friend the blow 

Fell like first lightning from long-gathered storm. 



BROWNING AT ASOLO 69 



BROWNING AT ASOLO 

(INSCRIBED TO HIS FRIEND MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON) 

This is the loggia Browning loved, 

High on the flank of the friendly town; 

These are the hills that his keen eye roved, 
The green like a cataract leaping down 
To the plain that his pen gave new renown. 

There to the West what a range of blue ! — 
The very background Titian drew 

To his peerless Loves. O tranquil scene! 
Who than thy poet f ondlier knew 

The peaks and the shore and the lore between? 

See ! yonder *s his Venice — the valiant Spire, 

Highest one of the perfect three, 
Guarding the others : the Palace choir, 
The Temple flashing with opal fire — 

Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea. 



70 BROWNING AT ASOLO 

Yesterday he was part of it all — 

Sat here, discerning cloud from snow 
In the flush of the Alpine afterglow, 
Or mused on the vineyard whose wine-stirred row 

Meets in a leafy bacchanal. 

Listen a moment — how oft did he! — 

To the bells from Fontalto's distant tower 

Leading the evening in . . . ah, me! 

Here breathes the whole soul of Italy 

As one rose breathes with the breath of the bower. 

Sighs were meant for an hour like this 

When joy is keen as a thrust of pain. 

Do you wonder the poet's heart should miss 

This touch of rapture in Nature's kiss 
And dream of Asolo ever again? 

"Part of it yesterday," we moan? 

Nay, he is part of it now, no fear. 
What most we love we are that alone. 
His body lies under the Minster stone, 

But the love of the warm heart lingers here. 

"La Mura," Asolo, June 3, 1892. 



AT SEA 71 



AT SEA 

Some things are undivined except by love — 
Vague to the mind, but real to the heart, 
As is the point of yon horizon line 
Nearest the dear one on a foreign shore. 



72 MOODS OF THE SOUL 

MOODS OF THE SOUL 
I. — In Time of Victory 

As soldiers after fight confess 

The fear their valor would not own 

When, ere the battle's thunder stress, 
The silence made its mightier moan : 

Though now the victory be mine, 
'T is of the conflict I must speak, 

Still wondering how the Hand Divine 
Confounds the mighty with the weak. 

To-morrow I may flaunt the foe — 
Not now ; for in the echoing beat 

Of fleeing heart-throbs well I know 
The bitterness of near defeat. 

O friends ! who see but steadfast deeds, 
Have grace of pity with your praise. 

Crown if you must, but crown with weeds, — 
The conquered more deserve your bays. 



MOODS OF THE SOUL 73 

No, praise the dead ! — the ancestral roll 
That down their line new courage send, 

For moments when against the soul 
All hell and half of heaven contend. 



II. — In Time of Defeat 

Yes, here is undisguised defeat — 
You say, " No further fight to lose." 

With colors in the dust, 't is meet 

That tears should flow and looks accuse. 

I echo every word of ruth 

Or blame : yet have I lost the right 

To praise with you the unfaltering Truth, 
Whose power — save in me — has might ? 

Another day, another man: 

I am not now what I have been; 

Each grain that through the hour-glass ran 
Rescued the sinner from his sin. 



74 MOODS OF THE SOUL 

The Future is my constant friend; 

Above all children born to her 
Alike her rich affections bend — 

She, the unchiding comforter. 

Perhaps on her unsullied scroll 

(Who knows?) there may be writ at last 

A fairer record of the soul 

For this dark blot upon the Past. 



TO LEONORA 75 

TO LEONORA 

(AT HER DEBUT, OCTOBER 18, 1891) 

Fair sister of the Muses, 't is the hour, 

Dearest of all, when thou dost wed thy Art. 
No bride more radiant a more single heart 
Gave to her chosen — and what noble dower! 

Graces akin to forest and to flower; 
A spirit blithe as dawn; a soul astart; 
A nature rich, to keep thee what thou art — 
A star of beauty and a flame of power. 

Now, while the tranced throng turn each to each 

Sharing their joy, think'st thou on those young years 
When many a day and night was unbeguiled 

Save by this love that lightened toil and tears ? 
Thy music melts upon the verge of speech; 
Fame greets the artist — I, the constant child. 



76 HERBERT MAPES 



HERBERT MAPES 
(drowned august 23, 1891) 

Last night, what kingdom on his brow ! 

What mellow music in his voice ! 

What strength to make the eye rejoice ! 
What life ! what flush of youth ! . . . and now ! 

O brow dethroned ! O muffled bell 
Of speech ! O net too loosely wove ! 
O sunken freight of hope and love ! 

Come back till we have said farewell ! 



A WISH FOR NEW FRANCE yj 



A WISH FOR NEW FRANCE 

(fragment) 

For her no backward look 
Into the bloody book 

Of kings. Thrice-rescued land ! 
Her haunted graves bespeak 
A nobler fate: to seek 
In service of the world again the world's command. 

She, in whose skies of peace 
Arise new auguries 

To strengthen, cheer, and guide — 
When nations in a horde 
Draw the unhallowed sword, 
O Memory, walk a warning specter at her side! 



78 DIVIDED HONORS 



DIVIDED HONORS* 

Nature had late a strife with Art 
To prove which bears the worthier part 
In poets' fame. The words ran high 
While Justice, friend to both, stood by 
To name the victor. 

Nature rose, 
Impressive in her artless pose, 
And in a few words fitly chose 
(Confined to generalities) 
Pleaded the nature of the thing — 
That singers born to sing must sing, 
That it could not be otherwise; 
Spoke of the poet's " flight of wing," 
His " flow of song," his " zephyr sighs," 
And hid in trope and allegory 
A whole campaign of a priori. 

Then Art began to plead her cause; 
Said Nature's windy words had flaws ■ — 

* Written for the dinner to James Whitcomb Riley at Indian- 
apolis, October 18, 1888. 



DIVIDED HONORS 79 

That e'en the larklet soaring high 
Must surely once have learned to fly 
And eke to sing. Moreover, Song 
Is something more than baby-prattle; 
Or plow-boy's carol to the cattle; 
Or love's acrostic — though it be 
Faultless (at one extremity) ; 
Or verse that school-girls spoil a day for, 
Found good to print, but not to pay for. 
This well she with herself debated, 
And, lacking points, elaborated, 
And, like a lawyer closely pressed, 
Naught having proved, assumed the rest. 

But Justice, knowing how to prick 

The airy globes of rhetoric, 

Said, " Friends, your theories are ample, 

Yet light upon the case we need, 

And, me judice, she '11 succeed 

Who shall present the best example." 

A moment both were still as death, 

Then shouted " Shakespeare! " in a breath; 



80 DIVIDED HONORS 

And then, confounded by each other 

(While pondering moderated pother), 

Ran down the list of English charmers, 

As in a fugue of two performers : 

T was "Chaucer!" "Philip Sidney!" "Donne!" 

" George Herbert! " " Milton! " " Tennyson! " 
And, quick as either one would name them, 
The other would be sure to claim them ! — 
Till Justice — blindfold all these years 
Because she can't believe her eyes — 
Convinced that hearing, too, belies, 
Now pulled her bandage o'er her ears. 
Then Nature, in affected candor, 
Renounced all ownership in Landor, 
And said: " Let 's both make fair returns; 
I '11 give you Keats — you give me Burns." 

" No, no," said Art, " you have a fit man, — - 
Your whole contention lies in Whitman." 
Then, she not wanting from her rival 
A gift of what was hers by right, 
At once there followed a revival 
Of acrimony — till in fright 
Pale Justice, with a sly suggestion 
Of dining, moved the previous question. 



DIVIDED HONORS 8l 

But Nature, conscious of her force, 
Had in reserve a shrewd resource, 
And, while the judgment hung uncertain, 
She quickly drew aside a curtain, 
And, full of confidence, said dryly : 
" I rest my case on Whitcomb Riley ! 
And further to enforce my right, 
He has consented to recite, 
That all may see by how large part 
He has possession of my heart." 

Five minutes! and the wager 's o'er: 
A ballad, homely, simple, true — 
And then, and ever after, you 
See Nature as you 'd ne'er before. 
First is the kind eye's twinkling ray 
So lit with human sympathy 
That, kindled by its flash, you say 
Humor 's the true democracy. 
The next note 's deeper — there 's no guile 
Mixed with the shrewdness of that smile 
That breaks from sadness into joy — 
The man's glad memory of the boy. 



82 DIVIDED HONORS 

Then tears, ah ! they are Nature's rain, 
The tears of love and death and grief 
And rapture — the divine relief 
That gives us back the sun again. 



No more need Nature nurse her fears, 
For look ! e'en Art herself 's in tears, 
And in the general acclaim 
The jade has nigh forgot her name. 
Yet has she left one arrow more, 
And, proudly rising to the floor, 
" Not yet," she says, " for what you take 
For Nature's work is mine, who make 
Jewels of stones that else would lie 
Unnoticed 'neath the searching sky. 
Receive the secret — mine your tears : 
He 's been my pupil fifteen years! " 

Then Justice said : " Since there 's no winner, 
'T is fair the two should pay a dinner; 
Nature shall furnish, Art prepare it, 
And Riley, and his friends, shall share it." 



A TRACER FOR /*** 5******** g^ 



A TRACER FOR J*** B 



******** 



Dear English Cousins : We have lost — 
And crave your help to find him — 

A farmer-poet, ocean-tossed, 
With no address behind him. 

Yes, though of song he write no stave, 

We yet will call him poet: 
His lines, as wave with following wave, 

Make rhythm and never know it. 

His pages grow rare fruits of thought, 

Rare fruits of toil his furrows; 
His name ? Why hide it when you Ve caught 

The rhyme I seek ? — John Burroughs. 

I doubt if in the London round 

His eager feet will loiter, 
While hedge and copse of Kentish ground 

Are left to reconnoiter. 



84 A TRACER FOR /*** B******** 

There he '11 compare, in lulls of rain, 

Your thrushes with our cat-bird, 
And quiz the lads in every lane 

For news of this or that bird. 

Him leaners over Stratford gates 

Shall mark, by Avon strolling. 
A poacher ? Ay, but on estates 

Not near their vision rolling. 

When Shakespeare tribute he has brought 

Across the loyal ocean, 
He '11 seek some haunt that Wordsworth sought 

To pay his next devotion. 

His " next " — ah! rather say his first. 
Since friend is more than sovereign; 

Of poets be the truth rehearsed : 
To reign is not to govern. 

To him the moor shall not be lone, 

Nor any footstep idle 
Where Nature hoards each lingering tone 

Of the human voice of Rydal. 



A TRACER FOR J*** 5******** 85 

By poets led, he will not grope, 
But be, from Kent to Cumberland, 

At home as on his Hudson slope 
Or Rip Van Winkle's slumberland. 



How shall you know him? — by what word, 
What shibboleth, what mole-ridge ? — 

Him who will find an English bird 
Just by a line of Coleridge? 

Of outward mark the quickest test 

Is that he wears the shading 
That sober Autumn loves the best — * 

Soft gray through iron fading. 

Tinged, too, are beard and hair; and keen 

His eye, but warm and witty; 
A rustic strength is in his mien, 

Made mild by love and pity. 



86 A TRACER FOR J*** 5******** 

A man of grave, of jolly moods, 

That with the world has kept tune — 

You 'd call him Druid in the woods, 
And in the billows Neptune. 

Another sign that will not fail : 
Where'er he chance to tarry, — 

In copse, or glen, or velvet vale, 
Or where the streamlets marry, 

Or on the peaks whose shadows spread 
O'er Grasmere's level reaches, — 

You '11 note shy shakings of his head 
Before his Saxon speeches. 



m 



Ah me ! by how poor facts and few 

A stranger may detect us, 
While friends may never find the clew, 

Though keenly they inspect us. 



A TRACER FOR /*** £******** g^ 

Of things that make the man — alack ! 

I 've hardly even hinted; 
We speak of them — behind his back, 

But hsre? — this might be printed. 

Still ... he 'd not know the portrait his — 

His modesty so blinds him — 
But no! . . . to learn what Burroughs is 

Shall be his fee who finds him. 



TO MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN 



II 

SONGS OF LIBERTY 

AND OTHER POEMS 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE * 

From the Parthenon 

(inscribed to the greek people on the seventy- 
fifth ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR INDEPENDENCE) 



O land of sage and stoic — 
Of human deeds heroic, 

Of heroes' deeds divine! 
What braggart of the nations 
Shall scorn thy proud narrations — 
Thou who hast named the stars from thy Olympian line ! 

* This ode, begun on the steps of the Parthenon in 1886, was 
published in the New York "Independent" of April, 1896, 
and, in part, in modern Greek in the " Hellas," a record of the 
Olympic Games of that year. 



93 



94 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

In spite of Moslem crime 
Thou livest! Hungry Time 

Can but the dead devour. 
Though asphodel hath strewed 
This marble solitude, 
The silence thrills with life, the ruins rise in power. 

Yon sea's imperial vastness 
Was once thy friend and fastness; 

By many a curving strand, 
'Twixt purple capes, on edges 
Of seaward-looking ledges, 
Rose the white cities sown by thy adventurous hand. 

Nor couldst thou think of these 
As lonely colonies 

Wherewith rich Corinth lined 
The West, while Dorian sails 
Outrode i^gean gales; 
Nay, suburbs were they all, molds of Athenian mind. 

Then could thy galleys pass 
From Tyre to Acragas, 

By Grecian islands gray 
That dreamed of Athens' brow, 
And gaily to the prow 
Harnessed the pawing winds to seek some Attic bay. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 95 

Here to Athene's feast, 

From West, from North, from East — 

Through Jason's fabled strait 
Or round Malea's rock — 
The homesick sails would flock, 
Oft with an Odyssey of peril to relate. 

And what exultant stir 
When the swart islander, 

Bound for the festal week, 
First saw Colonna's crest 
Give back the glowing West 
Far past iEgina's shore and her prophetic peak ! 

I hear his cheery cries 
Though Time between us lies 

More wide than sea and land. 
The gladness that he brings 
Thrills in the song he sings, 
Beaching his wekome craft on Phaleron's level strand. 

O harbor of delight ! 

Strike the torn sail — to-night 

On Attic soil again ! 
When joy is free to slaves 
What though the swarming waves 
Follow each other down like the generations of men ! 



96 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

Now, for a time, to war 
And private hate a bar 
Of sacred armistice; 
Even in the under-world 
Shall the rough winds be furled 
That tell of wrangling shades that crowd the courts of Dis. 

'T is Peace shall bring the green 
For Merit's brow. What scene, 

O Athens, shall be thine! 
Till from Parnassus' height 
Phcebus' reluctant light 
Lingers along Hymettus' fair and lofty line. 

With dance and song and game 
And oratory's flame 

Shall Hellas beat and swell, 
Till, olive-crowned, in pride 
The envied victors ride, 
Fellows to those whose fame the prancing marbles tell. 

O antique time and style, 
Return to us awhile 

Bright as thy happy skies ! 
Silent the sounds that mar: 
Like music heard afar 
The harmony endures while all- the discord dies. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 97 

Not yet the cloister-shade 
Fell on a world afraid, 

Morbid, morose — the alloy 
Found greater than the gold 
Of life. Like Nature old 
Thou still didst sing and show the sanity of joy. 

Thine is that wisdom yet 
That Age from Youth must get, 

Age pay to Youth in kind. 
Oh, teach our anxious days 
Through thy serener ways 
How by the happy heart to keep the unclouded mind. 

n 

But thou wert Freedom's too 
As well as Joy's. She drew 

From every mountain breast 
An air that could endure 
No foreign foe — so pure 
That Lycabettus neighbors the Corinthian crest. 

Nor was thy love of life 
For thee alone. Thy strife 
Was for the race, no less. 
Thee, to whom wrong is done 
While wrong confronts the sun, 
The oppressor cannot crush, nor teach thee to oppress. 



98 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

By thee for lands benighted 
Was Freedom's beacon lighted 
That now enstars the earth. 
Welcome the people's hour! 
Passed is the monarch's power, 
Dread waits not on his death that trembled at his birth. 

As down a craggy steep 
Albanian torrents leap 

Impetuous to the sea — 
Such was thy ancient spirit, 
Still thine. Who that inherit 
Hatred of tyranny inherit not from thee? 

Look to the West and see 
Thy daughter, Italy — 

Fathered by Neptune bold 
On Cumae's sheltered strand 
(Forgot but for the hand 
That saved to Art her sibyl many-named and old) ; 

That temple-sated soil, 
Whose altar-smoke would coil 
To hide the Avernian steep, 
Grows the same harvest now — 
Best increase of the plow, 
Fair Freedom, of thy seed, sown for the world to reap. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 99 

Though regal Rome display 
The triumphs of her day; 

Though Florence, laurel-hung, 
Tell how she held the van 
In the slow march of man — 
Greek was thepath they trod , Greek was the song they sung. 

Look farther west and there 
Behold thy later heir, 

Child of thy Jove-like mind — 
Fair France. How hath she kept 
The watch while others slept? 
Hath Wisdom hastened on while Justice lagged behind? 

Like thee, full well she knows 
Through what maternal throes 
New forms from olden come; 
Her arts, her temples, speak 
A glory that is Greek, 
And filially her heart turns to the ancestral home. 

For her no backward look 
Into the bloody book 

Of kings. Thrice-rescued land ! 
Her furrowed graves bespeak 
A nobler fate: to seek 
In service of the world again the world's command. 



100 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

She in whose skies of peace 
Arise new auguries 

To strengthen, cheer, and guide — ■ 
When nations in a horde 
Draw the unhallowed sword, 
O Memory, walk, a warning specter, at her side! 

Among thy debtor lands, 
See, grateful England stands; 

Who at thy ranging feet 
Learned how to carry Law 
Into the jungle's maw, 
And tempers unto Man or cold or desert heat. 

All that thou daredst she dares 
Till now thy name she bears — 

Mother of Colonies. 
What if thy glorious Past 
She should restore at last, 
And clothe in new renown the dream of Pericles! 

If she but lean to thee 
Once more thy North shall be 

Uplifted from the dust. 
Mother of noble men, 
Thy friends of sword and pen, 
England, though slow to justice, shall again be just. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE ioi 

And now from our new land 
Beyond two seas, a hand ! 

Our world, for ages dumb, 
Part of thy fable-lore, 
Gathers upon her shore 
Each dying race as soil for one chief race to come. 

But of our beating heart 
Thy pulse how large a part! 
Our wider sky but bounds 
Another Grecian dawn. 
Lament not what is gone ; 
Pentelicus grieves not, for Fame hath healed his wounds. 

in 
Then, Hellas ! scorn the sneer 
Of kings who will not hear 

Their people's moaning voice, 
More deaf than shore to sea ! 
The world hath need of thee — 
The world thou still canst teach to reason and rejoice. 

Yes, need of thee while Art 
Of life is but a part — 

Plaything or luxury. 
Greek soil perchance may show 
Where Art's hid stream doth flow — 
To rise, a new Alphteus, near another sea. 



102 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

Yes, need of thee while Gold 
Makes timid traitors bold 
To lay republics low; 
Not ignorant nor poor 
Spread for their feet the lure — 
The kind, the loved, the honored, aim the brutal blow. 

Yes, need of thee while Earth 
Each day shows Heaven a girth 

Of want and misery; 
Wherein there is not found 
Beyond thy happy bound 
A people brave, sane, temperate, thrifty, chaste, and free. 

Then, though by faction's blunder, 
And boasts, of mimic thunder, 

Again thou art betrayed, 
Vain this, vain every treason; 
With thee are Hope and Reason, 
Nor Past can be forgot, nor Future long delayed. 

Troy was, but Athens is — 
The World's and Liberty's, 

Nor ever less shall be ! 
Though fallen are old fanes 
The vestal fire remains 
Bright with the light serene of immortality. . ._ 



SONG OF THE MODERN GREEKS 103 



SONG OF THE MODERN GREEKS 

Liberty, beloved of Hellas, 
Lend us once again thy sword; 

Turn thy glorious eyes that tell us 
Thou art still to be adored. 

Hail thee, spirit! hover over 

Salamis and Marathon, 
Till each corse that called thee lover 

Rise with thee to lead us on. 

Slumbered Hellas long in sadness, 
Waiting thee to call her forth; 

Hushed the very cradle's gladness 
By the tyrant of the North. 

Long she dwelt with buried heroes 
In the fame of other years ; 

But against a horde of Neros 
What availed or pride or tears ? 



104 SONG OF THE MODERN GREEKS 

Then at last thy summons called us, 
And as one we followed thee, 

Till the rusted chains that thralled us 
Fell, and Greece once more was free. 

Ah, but while our kin are weeping 

Over sea and over land, 
Let us not again be sleeping, 

Wake us with thy warning hand. 

Though the Moslem swarm to slay us, 
Though false friends, within, without 

Kings or cowards — shall betray us, 
If thou lead us, who shall doubt ? 

Greece's blood made many an altar 
For the nations then unborn; 

Will they with her peril palter — 
Give her gratitude, or scorn? 

Oh, could Earth and Time assemble 

All thy legions, Liberty, 
At their tread the world would tremble 

With the passion to be free. 



TO THE HOUS ATONIC AT STOCKBRWGE 105 



TO THE HOUSATONIC AT STOCKBRIDGE 

Contented river ! in thy dreamy realm — 

The cloudy willow and the plumy elm : 

They call thee English, thinking thus to mate 

Their musing streams that, oft with pause sedate, 

Linger through misty meadows for a glance 

At haunted tower or turret of romance. 

Beware their praise who rashly would deny 

To our New World its true tranquillity. 

Our " New World " ? Nay, say rather to our Old 

(Let truth and freedom make us doubly bold) ; 

Tell them : A thousand silent years before 

Their sea-born isle — at every virgin shore 

Dripping like Aphrodite's tresses — rose, 

Here, 'neath her purple veil, deep slept Repose, 

To be awakened but by wail of war. 

About thy cradle under yonder hill, 

Before thou knewest bridge, or dam, or mill, 

Soft winds of starlight whispered heavenly lore, 

Which, like our childhood's, all the workday toil 

Cannot efface, nor long its beauty soil. 

Thou hast grown human laboring with men 

At wheel and spindle; sorrow thou dost ken; 



106 TO THE HOUS ATONIC AT STOCKBRIDGE 

Yet dost thou still the unshaken stars behold, 
Calm to their calm returning, as of old. 
Thus, like a gentle nature that grows strong 
In meditation for the strife with wrong, 
Thou show'st the peace that only tumult can; 
Surely, serener river never ran. 

Thou beautiful ! From every dreamy hill 
What eye but wanders with thee at thy will, 
Imagining thy silver course unseen 
Convoyed by two attendant streams of green 
In bending lines, — like half-expected swerves 
Of swaying music, or those perfect curves 
We call the robin ; making harmony 
With many a new-found treasure of the eye: 
With meadows, marging smoothly rounded hills 
Where Nature teemingly the myth fulfils 
Of many-breasted Plenty; with the blue, 
That to the zenith fades through triple hue, 
Pledge of the constant day; with clouds of white, 
That haunt horizons with their blooms of light, 
And when the east with rosy eve is glowing 
Seem like full cheeks of zephyrs gently blowing. 

Contented river ! and yet over-shy 

To mask thy beauty from the eager eye; 



TO THE HOUSATONIC AT ST0CKBR1DGE 107 

Hast thou a thought to hide from field and town? 

In some deep current of the sunlit brown 

Art thou disquieted — still uncontent 

With praise from thy Homeric bard, who lent 

The world the placidness thou gavest him? 

Thee Bryant loved when life was at its brim; 

And when the wine was falling, in thy wood 

Of sturdy willows like a Druid stood. 

Oh, for his touch on this o'er-throbbing time, 

His hand upon the hectic brow of Rhyme, 

Cooling its fevered passion to a pace 

To lead, to stir, to reinspire the race! 

Ah ! there 's a restive ripple, and the swift 
Red leaves — September's firstlings — faster drift; 
Betwixt twin aisles of prayer they seem to pass 
(One green, one greenly mirrored in thy glass). 
Wouldst thou away, dear stream ? Come, whisper near ! 
I also of much resting have a fear: 
Let me to-morrow thy companion be 
By fall and shallow to the adventurous sea ! 



io8 FAREWELL TO ITALY 



FAREWELL TO ITALY 

We lingered at Domo d'Ossola — 
Like a last, reluctant guest — 

Where the gray-green tide of Italy 
Flows up to a snowy crest. 

The world from that Alpine shoulder 
Yearns toward the Lombard plain— 

The hearts that come, with rapture, 
The hearts that go, with pain. 

Afar were the frets of Milan ; 

Below, the enchanted lakes; 
And — was it the mist of the evening, 

Or the mist that the memory makes? 

We gave to the pale horizon 

The Naples that evening gives; 

We reckoned where Rome lies buried, 
And we felt where Florence lives. 



FAREWELL TO ITALY 109 

And as Hope bends low at parting 

For a death-remembered tone, 
We searched the land that Beauty 

And Love have made their own. 

We would take of her hair some ringlet, 
Some keepsake from her breast, 

And catch of her plaintive music 
The strain that is tenderest. 

So we strolled in the yellow gloaming 
(Our speech with musing still) 

Till the noise of the militant village 
Fell faint on Calvary Hill. 

And scarcely our mood was broken 

Of near-impending loss 
To find at the bend of the pathway 

A station of the Cross. 

And up through the green aisle climbing 
(Each shrine like a counted bead), 

We heard from above the swaying 
And mystical chant of the creed. 

Then the dead seemed the only living, 
And the real seemed the wraith, 



no FAREWELL TO ITALY 

And we yielded ourselves to the vision 
We saw with the eye of Faith. 

Then she said, "Let us go no farther: 
'T is fit that we make farewell 

While forest and lake and mountain 
Are under the vesper spell." 

As we rested, the leafy silence 
Broke like a cloud at play, 

And a browned and burdened woman 
Passed, singing, down the way. 

'T was a song of health and labor,— 
Of childlike gladness, blent 

With the patience of the toiler 
That tyrants call content. 

"Nay, this is the word we have waited," 
I said, "that a year and a sea 
From now, in our doom of exile, 
Shall echo of Italy." 

Just then what a burst from the bosquet — 
As a bird might have found its soul ! 

And each by the halt of the heart-throb 
Knew 't was the rossignol. 



FAREWELL TO ITALY in 

Then we drew to each other nearer 

And drank at the gray wall's verge 

The sad, sweet song of lovers, — 
Their passion and their dirge. 

And the carol of Toil below us 

And the paean of Prayer above 

Were naught to the song of Sorrow, 
For under the sorrow was Love. 



Alas ! for the dear remembrance 
We chose for an amulet : 

The one that is left to keep it — 
Ah ! how can he forget ? 



112 A CHOPIN FANTASY 



A CHOPIN FANTASY 

ON REMEMBRANCE OF A PRELUDE 

Come, love, sit here and let us leave awhile 
This custom-laden world for warmer lands 
Where, 'neath the silken net of afternoon, 
Leisure is duty and dread care a dream. 

(The music begins) 

That cliff 's Minorca, that horizon Spain. 
There in the west, like fragrance visible, 
Rises the soft light as the sun goes down 
Till half the sky is palpitant with gold. 
Follow it eastward to the gentle blue, 
With faith and childhood in it, and the peace 
Men agonize and roam for. See that fleet 
That flutters in the breeze from the Camargue 
Like white doves, huddled now, now scattering. 
(They say all native boats are homeward bound 
Against to-morrow's annual festival.) 
What rest there is in looking from this height 



A CHOPIN FANTASY 113 

On palms and olives, and the easy steps 

By which the terrace clambers yonder hill ! 

How dark those hollows whence the roads of white 

Ascend in angles to the high-perched town! 

Needless the music of the convent bell: 

'T is vespers in the heart as in the air. 

This is the hour for love, that, like the breath 

Of yonder orange, sweetest is at eve. 

Here, safe entwined, what could be wished for two 

Hid in an island hidden in the sea ? 

Now let me lay my head upon your lap, 

And place your rose-leaf fingers on my lids, 

Lest, catching glimpse of your resplendent eyes, 

My ardor should blaspheme the coming stars ! 

How fast it darkens ! One must needs be blind 

To know the twilight softness of your voice. 

And Love, — not blind, but with a curtained sight, — 

Like one who dwells with Sorrow, can discern j$ 

The shading of a shadow in a tone. 

There 's something troubles you, my sweet-of -hearts. 

A hesitance in that caressing word; 

Nothing unhappy — a presentiment 

Such as from far might thrill the under-depths 

Of some still tranquil lake before a storm. 

Be happy, love, not ponder happiness. 



114 A CHOPIN FANTASY 

Unerringly I know your woman's soul, 

Content to have your happiness put off 

Like well-planned feast against to-morrow's need, 

And more enjoyed in planning than in use. 

But oh, we men, God made us — what was that? 

A drop upon your hand ? Perhaps a tear 

Lost by an angel who remembers yet 

Some perfect moment of th' imperfect world, 

And goes reluctantly her way to heaven, 

Still envious of our lot ? Another drop ! 

Why, 't is the rain. Stand here and see that sky — 

Blackness intense as sunlight. What a chasm 

Of silver where that lightning tore its way! 

That crash was nearer ! Here 's our shelter — 

quick ! 
Now it 's upon us! Half a breath, and — there! 
No wonder you should tremble when the earth 
Sways- thus and all the firmament *s a-reel. 
Tremble, but fear not — Love created Fear 
To drive men back to Love, where you are now. 
What rhythmic terror in the tideless sea 
That wildly seeks the refuge of the rocks 
From unknown dangers (dangers known are none) ! 
God! did you see within the headlands' jaws 
That drifting sail ? Wait the next flash and — look ! 
Oh, heaven! to cruise about a hundred coasts, 



A CHOPIN FANTASY 115 

Safe past the fabled monsters of the deep, 

To break supinely on familiar shoals 

Where one in childhood digged a mimic grave! 

Thank God for those few, momentary stars, 
And that slow-lifting zone of topaz light, 
Like parting guest returning with a smile. 
We care not now that the insatiate storm 
Plunges with leaps of thunder on the east. 

(The music ceases) 

Give me thy hand, dear one, though unto pain 
I crush it to be sure that this be dream, 
Knowing 'twas Death that passed, and oh, how 
near! 



Il6 IN TESLA'S LABORATORY, 



IN TESLA'S LABORATORY 

Here in the dark what ghostly figures press ! — 
No phantom of the Past, or grim or sad; 
No wailing spirit of woe; no specter, clad 

In white and wandering cloud, whose dumb distress 

Is that its crime it never may confess; 

No shape from the strewn sea; nor they that add 
The link of Life and Death, — the tearless mad, 

That live nor die in dreary nothingness: 

But blessed spirits waiting to be born — 

Thoughts to unlock the fettering chains of Things; 
The Better Time; the Universal Good. 
Their smile is like the joyous break of morn; 

How fair, how near, how wistfully they brood ! 
Listen ! that murmur is of angels' wings. 



THE WISTFUL DAYS 117 



THE WISTFUL DAYS 

What is there wanting in the Spring ? 

The air is soft as yesteryear; 

The happy-nested green is here, 
And half the world is on the wing. 

The morning beckons, and like balm 

Are westward waters blue and calm. 
Yet something 's wanting in the Spring. 

What is it wanting in the Spring ? 
O April, lover to us all, 
What is so poignant in thy thrall 

When children's merry voices ring? 
What haunts us in the cooing dove 

I More subtle than the speech of Love, 

What nameless lack or loss of Spring ? 

Let Youth go dally with the Spring, 
Call her the dear, the fair, the young; 
And all her graces ever sung 

Let him, once more rehearsing, sing. 
They know, who keep a broken tryst, 
Till something from the Spring be missed 

We have not truly known the Spring. 



Il8 "LOVE ONCE WAS LIKE AN APRIL DAWN 



" LOVE ONCE WAS LIKE AN APRIL DAWN 

Love once was like an April dawn: 

Song throbbed within the heart by rote 
And every tint of rose or fawn 
Was greeted by a joyous note. 
How eager was my thought to see 
Into that morning mystery ! 

Love now is like an August noon, 

No spot is empty of its shine; 
The sun makes silence seem a boon, 
And not a voice so dumb as mine. 

Yet with what words I'd welcome thee — 
Couldst thou return, dear mystery! 



AN IRISH LOVE-SONG 119 



AN IRISH LOVE-SONG 

In the years about twenty 

(When kisses are plenty) 
The love of an Irish lass fell to my fate — 

So winsome and sightly, 

So saucy and sprightly, 
The priest was a prophet that christened her Kate. 

Soft gray of the dawning, 

Bright blue of the morning, 
The sweet of her eye there was nothing to mate; 

A nose like a fairy's, 

A cheek like a cherry's, 
Andasmile — well, her smile was like — nothing but Kate. 

To see her was passion, 

To love her, the fashion; 
What wonder my heart was unwilling to wait! 

And, daring to love her, 

I soon did discover 
A Katharine masking as mischievous Kate. 



120 AN IRISH LOVE-SONG 

No Katy unruly, 

But Katharine, truly — 
Fond, serious, patient, and even sedate; 

With a glow in her gladness 

That banishes sadness — 
Yet stay! Should I credit the sunshine to Kate? 

Love cannot outlive it, 

Wealth cannot o'ergive it — 
That saucy surrender she made at the gate. 

O Time, be but human, 

Spare the girl in the woman! 
You gave me my Katharine — leave me my Kate! 



OH, WASTE NO TEARS'* 12\ 



"OH, WASTE NO TEARS" 

Oh, waste no tears on Pain or Fate, 
Nor yet at Sorrow's dire demand ; 

Think not to drown Regret with weight 
Of weeping, as the sea the strand; 

When was Death's victory less elate 

That Grief o'er-sobbed his grasping hand? 

Not for the flaws of life shall fall 
The tear most exquisite — ah, no; 

But for its fine perfections all: 
For morning's joyous overflow, 

For sunset's fleeting festival, 

And what midwinter moons may show; 

For wild-rose breath of Keats's line; 

For Titian's rivalry of June; 
For Chopin's tender notes that twine 

The sense in one autumnal tune; 
For Brunelleschi's dome divine, 

In wonder planned, with worship hewn. 



122 "OH, WASTE NO TEARS" 

Save them for heroes — not their blood, 
But for the generous vow it sealed; 

For babes, when mothers say, " This bud 
Will be the blossom of the field "; 

For women, when to Vengeance' flood 
They hold for Guilt a stainless shield. 

And when two hearts have closer come, 
Through doubts and mysteries and fears, 

Till in one look's delirium 

At last the happy truth appears, 

When words are weak and music dumb 
Then perfect love shall speak in tears. 



HER SMILE 123 



HER SMILE 

The odor is the rose; 

The smile, the woman. 
Delights the bud doth sheathe, 

Unfolded, all may breathe. 
So joys that none could know 
Her smiles on all bestow, 

As though a rose were happy to be human! 



124 $ 0NG FOR THE GUITAR 



SONG FOR THE GUITAR 

I grieve to see these tears — 

Long strangers to thine eye — 
These jewels that fond years 
For me could never buy. 
Weep, weep, and give thy heart relief. 
I grieve, but 'tis not for thy grief: 

Not for these tears — they were 

Another's ere they fell — 
But those that never stir 

The fountain where they dwell. 
I 'd smile, though thou shouldst weep a 
Were but a single tear for me ! 



URSULA 125 



URSULA 

I see her in the festal warmth to-night, 
Her rest all grace, her motion all delight. 
Endowed with all the woman's arts that please, 
In her soft gown she seems a thing of ease, 
Whom sorrow may not reach or evil blight. 

To-morrow she will toil from floor to floor 
To smile upon the unreplying poor, 
To stay the tears of widows, and to be 
Confessor to men's erring hearts ... ah me! 
She knows not I am beggar at her door. 



126 A DARK DAY 



A DARK DAY 

Gloom of a leaden sky 

Too heavy for hope to move; 

Grief in my heart to vie 

With the dark distress above; 

Yet happy, happy am I — 
For I sorrow with her I love. 



THE SURPRISED AVOWAL 127 



THE SURPRISED AVOWAL 

When one word is spoken, 
When one look you see, 

When you take the token, 
Howe'er so slight it be, 

The cage's bolt is broken, 
The happy bird is free. 

There is no unsaying 
That love-startled word ; 

It were idle praying 
It no more be heard ; 

Yet, its law obeying, 

Who shall blame the bird ? 

What avails the mending 
Where the cage was weak ? 

What avails the sending 
Far, the bird to seek, 

When every cloud is lending 
Wings toward yonder peak? 



i 2 8 THE SURPRISED AVOWAL 

Thrush, could they recapture 
You to newer wrong, 

How could you adapt your 
Strain to suit the throng ? 

Gone would be the rapture 
Of unimprisoned song. 



THE BLOSSOM OF THE SOUL 129 



THE BLOSSOM OF THE SOUL 

Thou half-unfolded flower 
With fragrance-laden heart, 

What is the secret power 
That doth thy petals part ? 

What gave thee most thy hue — 

The sunshine, or the dew ? 

Thou wonder-wakened soul! 

As Dawn doth steal on Night 
On thee soft Love hath stole. 

Thine eye, that blooms with light, 
What makes its charm so new — 
Its sunshine, or its dew ? 



130 "J JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE SPRING" 



"I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE 
SPRING " 

I journeyed South to meet the Spring, 

To feel the soft tide's gentle rise 
That to my heart again should bring, 
Foretold by many a whispering wing, 
The old, the new, the sweet surprise. 

For once, the wonder was not new — 

And yet it wore a newer grace: 
For all its innocence of hue, 
Its warmth and bloom and dream and dew, 

I had but left — in Helen's face. 



PARAPHRASES FROM THE SERVIAN 

or 

ZMAI IOVAN IOVANOVICH 

AFTER LITERAL TRANSLATIONS 

BY 

NIKOLA TESLA 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

BY 

Mr. TESLA 



ZMAI IOVAN IOVANOVICH 

THE CHIEF SERVIAN POET OF TO-DAY 

Hardly is there a nation which has met with a sad- 
der fate than the Servian. From the height of its 
splendor, when the empire embraced almost the entire 
northern part of the Balkan peninsula and a large por- 
tion of the territory now belonging to Austria, the Ser- 
vian nation was plunged into abject slavery, after the 
fatal battle of 1389 at the Kosovo Polje, against the 
overwhelming Asiatic hordes. Europe can never repay 
the great debt it owes to the Servians for checking, by 
the sacrifice of their own liberty, that barbarian influx. 
The Poles at Vienna, under Sobieski, finished what the 
Servians attempted, and were similarly rewarded for 
their service to civilization. 

It was at the Kosovo Polje that Milosh Obilich, the 
noblest of Servian heroes, fell, after killing the Sultan 
Murat II. in the>very midst of his great army. Were 
it not that it is an historical fact, one would be apt to 
consider this episode a myth, evolved by contact with 
the Greek and Latin races. For in Milosh we see both 
135 



136 INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 

Leonidas and Mucius, and, more than this, a martyr, 
for he does not die an easy death on the battle-field like 
the Greek, but pays for his daring deed with a death of 
fearful torture. It is not astonishing that the poetry of 
a nation capable of producing such heroes should be 
pervaded with a spirit of nobility and chivalry. Even 
the indomitable Marko Kraljevich, the later incarnation 
of Servian heroism, when vanquishing Musa, the Mos- 
lem chief, exclaims, " Woe unto me, for I have killed 
a better man than myself ! " 

From that fatal battle until a recent period, it has 
been black night for the Servians, with but a single star 
in the firmament — Montenegro. In this gloom there 
was no hope for science, commerce, art, or industry. 
What could they do, this brave people, save to keep up 
the weary fight against the oppressor? And this they 
did unceasingly, though the odds were twenty to one. 
Yet fighting merely satisfied their wilder instincts. 
There was one more thing they could do, and did: the 
noble feats of their ancestors, the brave deeds of those 
who fell in the struggle for liberty, they embodied in 
immortal song. Thus circumstances and innate quali- 
ties made the Servians a nation of thinkers and poets, 
and thus, gradually, were evolved their magnificent 
national poems, which were first collected by their most 
prolific writer, Vuk Stefanovich Karajich, who also 
compiled the first dictionary of the Servian tongue, 
containing more than sixty thousand words. These 
national poems Goethe considered fit to match the finest 
productions of the Greeks and Romans. What would 
he have thought of them had he been a Servian ? 

While the Servians have been distinguished in national 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 137 

poetry, they have also had many individual poets who 
attained greatness. Of contemporaries there is none 
who has grown so dear to the younger generation as 
Zmai Iovan Iovanovich. He was born in Novi Sad 
(Neusatz), a city at the southern border of Hungary, on 
November 24, 1833. He comes from an old and noble 
family, which is related to the Servian royal house. In 
his earliest childhood he showed a great desire to learn 
by heart the Servian national songs which were recited 
to him, and even as a child he began to compose poems. 
His father, who was a highly cultivated and wealthy 
gentleman, gave him his first education in his native 
city. After this he went to Budapest, Prague, and 
Vienna, and in these cities he finished his studies in law. 
This was the wish of his father, but his own inclinations 
prompted him to take up the study of medicine. He 
then returned to his native city, where a prominent 
official position was offered him, which .he accepted; 
but so strong were his poetical instincts that a year later 
he abandoned the post to devote himself entirely to 
literary work. 

His literary career began in 1849, his first poem being 
printed in 1852, in a journal called " Srbski Letopis " 
(" Servian Annual Review ") ; to this and to other jour- 
nals, notably " Neven " and " Sedmica," he contributed 
his early productions. From that period until 1870, 
besides his original poems, he made many beautiful 
translations from Petefy and Arany, the two greatest of 
the Hungarian poets, and from the Russian of Lermon- 
tof, as well as from German and other poets. In 1861 
he edited the comic journal, " Komarac " (" The Mos- 
quito"), and in the same year he started the literary 



138 INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 

journal, " Javor," and to these papers he contributed 
many beautiful poems. In 1861 he married, and 
during the few happy years that followed he produced 
his admirable series of lyrical poems called " Giulichi," 
which probably remain his masterpiece. In 1862, 
greatly to his regret, he discontinued his beloved jour- 
nal, " Javor " — a sacrifice which was asked of him by 
the great Servian patriot, Miletich, who was then active 
on a political journal, in order to insure the success of 
the latter. 

In 1863 he was elected director of an educational 
institution, called the Tekelianum, at Budapest. He 
now ardently renewed the study of medicine at the uni- 
versity, and took the degree of doctor of medicine. 
Meanwhile he did not relax his literary labors. Yet, 
for his countrymen, more valuable even than his splen- 
did productions were his noble and unselfish efforts to 
nourish the enthusiasm of Servian youth. During his 
stay in Budapest he founded the literary society Preod- 
nica, of which he was president, and to which he de- 
voted a large portion of his energies. 

In 1864 he started his famous satirical journal, "Zmai" 
(" The Dragon "), which was so popular that the name 
became a part of his own. In 1866 his comic play 
" Sharan " was given with great success. In 1872 he 
had the great pain of losing his wife, and, shortly after, 
his only child. How much these misfortunes affected 
him is plainly perceptible from the deeply sad tone of 
the poems which immediately followed. In 1873 he 
started another comic journal, the " Ziza." During the 
year 1877 he began an illustrated chronicle of the Russo- 
Turkish war, and in 1878 appeared his popular comic 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 139 

journal, " Starmali." During all this period he wrote 
not only poems, but much prose, including short novels, 
often under an assumed name. The best of these is 
probably " Vidosava Brankovicheva." In recent years 
he has published a great many charming little poems for 
children. 

Since 1870 Zmai has pursued his profession as a phy- 
sician. He is an earnest advocate of cremation, and 
has devoted much time to the furtherance of that cause. 
Until recently he was a resident of Vienna, but now he 
is domiciled in Belgrade. There he lives the life of a 
true poet, loving all and beloved by everybody. In 
recognition of his merit, the nation has voted him a 
subvention. 

The poems of Zmai are so essentially Servian that to 
translate them into another tongue appears next to 
impossible. In keen satire free from Voltarian venom, 
in good-hearted and spontaneous humor, in delicacy 
and depth of expression, they are remarkable. Mr. 
Johnson has undertaken the task of versifying a few of 
the shorter ones after my literal and inadequate readings. 
Close translation being often out of the question, he has 
had to paraphrase, following as nearly as possible the 
original motives and ideas. In some instances he has ex- 
panded in«order to complete a picture or to add a touch 
of his own. The poems which follow will give some 
idea of the versatility of the Servian poet, but come far 
short of indicating his range. 

New York City. Nikola Tesla. 

Note, June, 1918: Both Zmai and the hero of his ballad, 
Luka Filipov, have died since Mr. Tesla's lines were written. — 
R. U. J. 



THE THREE GIAOURS 141 



THE THREE GIAOURS 

In the midst of the dark and stormy night 

Feruz Pacha awakes in fright 

And springs from out his curtained bed. 

The candle trembles as though it read 

Upon his pallid face the theme 

And terror of his nightly dream. 

He calls to his startled favorite : 
" The keys! the keys of the dungeon-pit! 
Cannot those cursed Giaours stay 
There in their own dark, rotting away, 
Where I gave them leave three years ago? 
Had I but buried their bones! — but, no! 
They come at midnight to clatter and creep, 
And haunt and threaten me in my sleep." 

" Pacha, wait till the morning light! 
Do not go down that fearful flight 



142 THE THREE GIAOURS 

Where every step is a dead man's moan! 
Mujo to-morrow will gather each bone 
And bury it deep. Let the Giaours freeze 
If thy bed be warm." 

" Nay, give me the keys. 
Girl, you talk like a wrinkled dame 
That shudders at whisper of a name. 
When they were living, their curses made 
A thousand cowards: was I afraid? 
Now they are dead, shall my fear begin 
With the Giaour's curse, or the skeleton's grin? 
No, I must see them face to face 
In the very midst of their dwelling-place, 
And find what need they have of me 
That they call my name eternally." 

As groping along to the stair he goes, 

The light of the shaking candle shows 

A face like a white and faded rose; 

But if this be fear, it is fear to stay, 

For something urges him on his way — 

Though the steps are cold and the echoes mock — 

Till the right key screams in the rusted lock. 

Ugh ! what a blast from the dungeon dank ! — 
From the place where Hunger and Death were wed; 
Whence even the snakes by instinct fled, 



THE THREE GIAOURS 143 

While the very lizards crouched and shrank 
In a chill of terror. 'T is inky black 
And icy cold, but he cannot go back, 
For there, as though the darkness flowers — 
There sit the skeletons of three Giaours 
Ghost- white in the flickering candle-gleam ! — 
(Or is it the remnant of his dream?) 
About a stone that is green with n.old 
They sit in a group, and their fingers hold 
Full glasses, and as the glasses clink 
The first Giaour beckons him to drink. 

" Pacha, here is a glass for thee ! 

When last on me the sunlight shone 
I had a wife who was dear to me. 

She was alone — no, not alone; 
The blade in her hand was her comrade true, 
As she came to your castle, seeking you. 

" And when she came to your castle gate 
She dared you forth, but you would not go. 

Fiend and coward, you could not wait 
For a woman's wrath, but shot her, so. 

Her heart fell down in a piteous flood. 

This glass is filled with her precious blood. 

" See how fine as I hold it up ! 

Drink, Feruz Pacha, the brimming cup! " 



144 THE THREE GIAOURS 

Spellbound the Pacha now draws nigh; 
He empties the glass with a sudden cry: 
The skeletons drink with a laugh and toss, 
And they make the sign of the holy cross. 

Then speaks the second of the dead : 

" When to this darkness I was led, 

My mother asked, * What sum will give 

Your prisoner back to the sun? ' You said, 
4 Three measures of gold, and the dog shall 
live.' 

Through pinching toil by noon and night 

She saved and saved till her hope grew bright. 

" But when she brought you the yellow hoard, 
You mocked at the drops on her tired brow, 

And said, ' Toward the pay for his wholesome 
board 
Of good round stones I will this allow.* 

She died while her face with toil was wet. 

This glass is filled with her faithful sweat. 

" See how fine as I hold it up ! 

Drink, Feruz Pacha, the brimming cup! " 

Haggard the Pacha now stands by; 
He drains the glass with a stifled cry: 



THE THREE GIAOURS 145 

Again they drink with a laugh and toss, 
And the third one says, as his comrades cross: 

" When this black shadow on me fell, 
There sang within my mountain home 

My one pale lad. Bethought him well 
That he would to my rescue come; 

But when he tried to lift the gun 

He tottered till the tears would run. 

" Though vengeance sped his weary feet, 
Too late he came. Then back he crept, — 

Forgot to drink, forgot to eat, — 
And no slow moment went unwept. 

He died of grief at his meager years. 

This glass is laden with his tears. 

" See how fine as I hold it up! 

Drink, Feruz Pacha, the brimming cup! " 

The Pacha staggers; he holds it high; 
He drinks; he falls with a moan and cry: 
They laugh, they cross, but they drink no more — 
For the dead in the dungeon-cave are four. 



146 LUKA FILIPOV 



LUKA FILIPOV 

(AN INCIDENT OF THE MONTENEGRIN WAR OF 1876-78) 

One more hero to be part 

Of the Servians' glory! 
Lute to lute and heart to heart 

Tell the homely story; 
Let the Moslem hide for shame, 
Trembling like the falcon's game, 
Thinking on the falcon's name — 
Luka Filipov. 

When he fought with sword and gun 

Doughty was he reckoned ; 
When he was the foremost, none 

Blushed to be the second. 
But he tired of the taint 
Of the Turk's blood, learned restraint 
From his sated sword — the quaint 
Luka Filipov. 



LUKA FILIPOV 147 

Thus he reasoned : Though they fall 

Like the grass in mowing, 
Yet the dead Turks, after all, 

Make a sorry showing. 
Foes that die remember not 
How our Montenegrins bought 
Our unbroken freedom — thought 
Luka Filipov. 

So, in last year's battle-storm 

Swooped our Servian falcon, 
Chose the sleekest of the swarm 

From beyond the Balkan: 
Plucked a pacha from his horse, 
Carried him away by force, 
While we cheered along his course: 
"Luka!" "Filipov!" 

To the Prince his prize he bore 

Just as he had won him — 
Laid him at the Prince's door, 

Not a scratch upon him. 
" Prince, a present! And for fear 
He should find it lonely here, 
I will fetch his mate," said queer 
Luka Filipov. 



148 LUKA FILIPOV 

Back into the fight he rushed 

Where the Turks were flying, 
Past his kinsmen boldly brushed, 

Leaping dead and dying: 
Seized a stalwart infidel, 
Wrenched his gun and, like a spell, 
Marched him back — him heeding well 
Luka Filipov. 

But the Moslems, catching breath 

Mid their helter-skelter, 
Poured upon him hail of death 

From a rocky shelter, 
Till a devil-guided ball 
Striking one yet wounded all : 
For there staggered, nigh to fall, 
Luka Filipov. 

Paused the conflict — all intent 

On the two before us; 
And the Turkish regiment 

Cheered in hideous chorus 
As the prisoner, half afraid, 
Turned and started up the glade, 
Thinking — dullard ! — to evade 
Luka Filipov. 



LUKA FILIPOV 149 

We 'd have fired — but Luka's hand 

Rose in protestation, 
While his pistol's mute command 

Needed no translation ; 
For the Turk retraced his track, 
Knelt and took upon his back 
(As a peddler shifts his pack) 
Luka Filipov! 

How we cheered him as he passed 

Through the line, a-s winging 
Gun and pistol — bleeding fast — 

Grim — but loudly singing : 
" Lucky me to find a steed 
Fit to give the Prince for speed! 
Rein or saddle ne'er shall need 
Luka Filipov! " 

So he urged him to the tent 
Where the Prince was resting — 

Brought his captive, shamed and spent, 
To make true his jesting. 

And as couriers came to say 

That our friends had won the day, 

Who should up and faint away? 
Luka Filipov. 



i 



150 A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 



A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 



Three sons she has of Servian mold 
As balsam for her widow's grief, 

While in her Danka all behold 
A treasure precious past belief. 

Oh, lovely Danka ! happy she, 
More fortunate than all beside, 

To be the pride of brothers three, 
Themselves of Bosnia the pride ! 

In her they glory; she inspires 
To freedom's never-ending fight, 

And in their hearts burn' patriot fires, 
As stars upon the Turkish night. 

And often at the mother's door 

Tears mingle with the words that bless: 



A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 151 

" O gods of battle ! guard my four — 
My falcons and my falconess." 



Her radiant beauty nothing hides — 
What wonder that the Turk has seen, 

And as before her door he rides 
The Raven- Aga calls her queen ! 

For three nights has he lain awake — 
To call on Allah ? Nay, till dawn 

Calling on Danka, for whose sake 
His heart is sore, his brow is wan. 

He gathers warriors ere the sun ; 

They gallop quickly through the murk; 
And Danka, at the signal-gun, 

Cries, " Save me, brothers! — 'tis the Turk! " 

Now flash the rifles, speeds the fight, 
Till, shamed, the Raven- Aga flies. 

Alas for Danka ! in her sight 
One lion-hearted brother dies. 



152 A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 

Again the infidel appears, 

And at his heels ride forty guns ; 

But at the voice of Danka's fears 
Red many a Turkish stirrup runs. 

But, oh, at vespers, when once more 
The baffled Raven back has fled, 

Across the sill of Danka's door 
There lies another brother, dead. 

The Turkish devil once again 

Summons each savage wedding-guest, 

And half a hundred to be slain 

Go forth at midnight toward the west. 

Once more the stealthy Moslems ride, 
Once more the Servians gather fast, 

As Danka summons to her side 
Her brother — and her last. 

The fight grows fiercer, till the dead 
Fill the dim street from wall to wall. 

Call on thy mother, Battle- wed — 
Thou hast no brother left to call! 

The Raven seizes her and croaks : 

" At last thou art my bride, proud maid! " 



A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 153 

" Not thine — my yataghan's ! " Two strokes — 
Her warm heart weds the loyal blade. 

in 

Dark is the night as on the slopes 

Of that deserted battle-ground 
The mother, crazed with sorrow, gropes 

Until her sons' three swords are found. 

And as she roams through Servian lands 
(Her mirth more piteous than tears) 

She bears a blade in her thin hands 
To right the wrongs of many years. 

And offering Danka's plighted knife 
Or one of those three patriot swords, 

She calls the coldest rock to strife, — 
" Take, and repel the Turkish hordes I " 

And as the rock no word replies, 
She asks, " Are you not Servian too? 

Why are you silent then? " she cries; 
" Is there no living heart in you? " 

She treads the dreary night alone; 
There is no echo to her moan. . . . 
Is every heart a heart of stone ? 



154 THE MONSTER, 



THE MONSTER 

" In place of the heart, a serpent; 

Rage — for the mind's command; 
An eye aflame with wildness ; 

A weapon in the hand; 

" A brow with midnight clouded; 

On the lips a cynic smile 
That tells of a curse unmatchable — 

Born of a sin most vile. 

" Of longing, or hope, or virtue, 

No vestige may there be; 
You, even in vice inhuman — 

What can you want of me? 

" You in its maddest moment 
The Deepest Pit designed, — 

Let loose to sow confusion 
In the order of mankind; 



THE MONSTER 155 

" Here Hatred found you crawling 

Like vermin, groveling, prone, 
Filled you with, blood of others 

And poisoned all your own. 

" Your very thoughts are fiendish — 

Smoke of the fires of Hell. 
Weird as you are, how is it 

I seem to know you well ? 



" Why with your wild delirium 
Do you infect my sleep ? 

Why with my daily footstep 
An equal measure keep? " 



The monster mutely beckons me 
Back with his ghostly hand, 

And dreading his fearful answer 
I heed the grim command. 

" Nay, softly," he says; " I pray thee, 
Silence thy frightened moan, 

And wipe the sweat from thy forehead; 
My kinsman thou, my own ! 



156 



THE MONSTER 



" Look at me well, good cousin; 

Such wert thou fashioned of ! 
Thou, too, wouldst me resemble 

Without that magic — Love ! ' 



TWO DREAMS 157 



TWO DREAMS 

Deep on the bosom of Jeel-Begzad 
(Darling daughter of stern Bidar) 

Sleeps the rose of her lover lad. 

It brings this word: When the zenith-star 

Melts in the full moon's rising light, 

Then shall her Giaour come — to-night. 

What is the odor that fills her room? 

Ah! 't is the dream of the sleeping rose; 
To feel his lips near its velvet bloom 

In the secret shadow no moonbeam knows, 
Till the maiden passion within her breast 
Kindles to flame where the kisses rest. 

By the stealthy ringers of old Bidar 

(Savage father of Jeel-Begzad) 
Never bloodless in peace or war 

Was a hand jar sheathed; and each one had 
Graved on its handle a Koran prayer — 
He can feel it now, in his ambush there! 



158 



TWO DREAMS 



The moon rides pale in the quiet night; 

It puts out the stars, but never the gleam 
Of the waiting blade's foreboding light, 

Astir in its sheath in a horrid dream 
Of pain, of blood, and of gasping breath, 
Of the thirst of vengeance drenched in death. 



The dawn did the dream of the rose undo, 
But the dream of the sleeping blade came true. 



MYSTERIOUS LOVE 159 



MYSTERIOUS LOVE 

Into the air I breathed a sigh ; 

She, afar, another breathed — 
Sighs that, like a butterfly, 
Each went wandering low and high, 

Till the air with sighs was wreathed. 

When each other long they sought, 

On a star-o'er-twinkled hill 
Jasmine, trembling with the thought, 
Both within her chalice caught, 
A lover's potion to distil. 

Drank of this a nightingale, 

Guided by the starlight wan — 
Drank and sang from dale to dale, 
Till every streamlet did exhale 
Incense to the waking dawn. 

Like the dawn, the maiden heard ; 
While, afar, I felt the fire 



160 MYSTERIOUS LOVE 

In the bosom of the bird; 
Forth our sighs again were stirred 
With a sevenfold desire. 

These we followed till we learned 
Where they trysted; there erelong 

Their fond nightingale returned. 

Deeper then our longings burned, 
Deeper the delights of song. 

Now, when at the wakening hour, 

Sigh to sigh, we greet his lay, 
Well we know its mystic power — 
Feeling dawn and bird and flower 
Pouring meaning into May. 

Jasmine, perfume every grove! 

Nightingale, forever sing 
To the brightening dawn above 
Of the mystery of love 

In the mystery of Spring ! 



TEE COMING OF SONG 161 



THE COMING OF SONG 

When the sky darkened on the first great sin, 

And gates that shut man out shut Hope within, 

Like to the falcon when his wing is broke, 

The bitter cry of mortals then awoke : 

" Too heavy is our burden," groaned the two. 

" Shall woes forever on our track pursue, 

And nest within these empty hearts ? Or, worse, 

Shall we be withered by the cruel curse? 

Already less than human, shall we fall 

By slow succession to some animal ? " 

Then, filled with pity at the desperate cry, 

Came from His throne of thunder the Most High: 

" That you should suffer " (spake the Voice) " is just 

'T is you have chosen for a feast a crust. 

But not so unrelenting I — the least 

Of all your kind shall be above the beast. 

That erring mortals be not lost in fear, 

Come from My shining courts, O daughter dear! 



1 62 TEE COMING OF SONG 

Thou dost to heaven, shalt to earth belong. 
She came; she stayed: it was the Muse of Song. 

Again the day was radiant with light, 

And something more than stars illumed the night. 

Hope, beckoning, to the desert took its flight. 

Where is Pain and dire Distress, 
Song shall soothe like soft caress; 
Though the stoutest courage fails, 
Song 's an anchor in all gales; 
When all others fail to reach, 
Song shall be the thrilling speech ; 
Love and friends and comfort fled, 
Song shall linger by your bed; 
And when Doubt shall question, Why? 
Song shall lift you to the sky. 



CURSES 163 



CURSES 

Fain would I curse thee, sweet unkind ! 

That thou art fair ; 
Fain curse, my mother, that not blind 

She did me bear; 
But, no ! — each curse would break, not bind, 

The heart ye share. 



164 A FAIRY FROM THE SUN-SHOWER 



A FAIRY FROM THE SUN-SHOWER 

[When the Servians see the sun-rays of a summer shower they 
say it is the fairies combing their hair.] 

Over the meadow a shower is roaming; 

Just beyond is the summer sun; 
Fair is the hair that the fays are combing — 

Myth come true ! here 's my dainty one 
Tripping the path in the wind's soft blowing; 
Her slender form through her gown is showing, 
Her foot scarce whispers the way she 's going. 

" Come, my bright one, come, my soul, 

Let my kisses be your goal." 

But the path has heard my sighing, 

Turns aside, and leads my fay 
Into the forest, love defying. 

Path, accursed be! — but stay! 
Lost to love each moment gliding, 
What if in the woodland hiding 
Still for me my fay be biding ! . . . 

" Wait, my bright one, wait, my soul, 

Your sweet kisses are my goal." 



FRAGMENT FROM THE "GIULICHE" 165 



"WHY," YOU ASK, "HAS NOT THE 
SERVIAN PERISHED?" 

FRAGMENT EROM THE " GIULICHE " (" JEWELS ") 

" Why," you ask, " has not the Servian perished, 
Such calamities about him throng? " 

With the sword alike the lyre he cherished : 
He is saved by Song! 



166 "I BEGGED A KISS OF A LITTLE MAID 



I BEGGED A KISS OF A LITTLE MAID" 

I begged a kiss of a little maid; 

Shyly, sweetly, she consented; 
Then of a sudden, all afraid, 

After she gave it, she repented; 
And now as penance for that one kiss 
She asks a poem — I '11 give her this. 

But how can my song be my very best 
When she, with a voice as soft as Circe's, 

Has charmed the heart from my lonely breast — 
The heart, the fountain of all true verses ? 

Why, oh, why should a maid do this? 

No — I must give her back her kiss. 



WHY THE ARMY BECAME QUIET 167 



WHY THE ARMY BECAME QUIET 

Some said they did but play at war, — 
How that may be, ah ! who can tell ? 

I know the gallant army corps 
Upon their fleeing foemen fell, 

And sacked their camp, and took their town, 

And won both victory and renown. 

Now home returning, wild with song, 
They come, the colors flying free. 

But as within the door they throng, 
Why does the army suddenly 

Hush the fierce din, and silence keep? — 

Why, little brother is asleep. 



168 THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 



THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 

You 're admiring my horse, sir, I see. 

He 's so light that you 'd think it 's a bird — 
Say a swallow. Ah me! 

He 's a prize ! 

It 's absurd 
To suppose you can take him all in as he passes 

With the best pair of eyes, 

Or the powerful aid 
Of your best pair of glasses : 

Take 'em off, and let 's trade. 

What I " Is Selim as good as he seems? " 

Never fear, 

Uncle dear, 
He 's as good as the best of your dreams, 

And as sound as your sleep. 

It 's only that kind that a gipsy would keep. 
The emperor's stables can't furnish his mate. 
But his grit and his gait, 



THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 169 

And his wind and his ways, 

A gipsy like me does n't know how to praise. 
But (if truth must be told) 
Although you should cover him over with gold 
He 'd be worth one more sovereign still. 

"Is he old?" 
Oh, don't look at his teeth, my dear sir! 
I never have seen 'em myself. 
Age has nothing to do with an elf; 
So it 's fair to infer 
My fairy can never grow old. 
Oh, don't look — (Here, my friend, 
Will you do me the kindness to hold 
For a moment these reins while I 'tend 
To that fly on his shanks?) . . . 
As I said — (Ah — now — thanks ! ) 
The longer you drive 
The better he '11 thrive. 
He '11 never be laid on the shelf ! 

The older that colt is, the younger he '11 grow. 
I Ve tried him for years, and I know. 

"Eat? Eat?" do you say? 

Oh, that nag is n't nice 

About eating ! Whatever you have will suffice. 



170 THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 

He takes everything raw — 
Some oats or some hay, 

Or a small wisp of straw, 

If you have it. If not, never mind — 
Selim won't even neigh. 
What kind of a feeder is he? That 's the kind! 

" Is he clever at jumping a fence? " 
What a question to ask ! He 's immense 

At a leap! 

How absurd! 

Why, the trouble 's to keep 
Such a Pegasus down to the ground. 
He takes every fence at a bound 
With the grace of a bird; 

And so great is his strength, 

And so keen is his sense, 

He goes over a fence 
Not across, but the way of its length ! 

" Under saddle? " No saddle for Selim! 
Why, you 've only to mount him, and feel him 

Fly level and steady, to see 

What disgrace that would be. 
No, you could n't more deeply insult him, unless 
You attempted to guess 

And pry into his pedigree. 



THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE iji 

Now why should you speak of his eyes? 

Does he seem like a horse that would need 

An eye-glass to add to his speed 
Or, perchance, to look wise ? 

No, indeed. 

Why, not only 's the night to that steed 
Just the same as the day, 

But he knows all that passes — 
Both before and behind, either way. 

Oh, he does n't need glasses ! 

" Has he any defect ? " What a question, my friend ! 

That is why, my dear sir, I am willing to sell. 

You know very well 
It is only the horse that you give or you lend 
That has glanders, or springhalt, or something to mend : 

'T is because not a breath 

Of defect or of death 
Can be found on my Selim that he 's at your pleasure. 
Alas! not for gipsies the care of such treasure. 

And now about speed. " Is he fast? " I should say! 
Just listen — I '11 tell you. 

One equinox day, 
Coming home from Erdout in the usual way, 
A terrible storm overtook us. 'T was plain 
There was nothing to do but to run for it. Rain, 



172 THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 

Like the blackness of night, gave us chase. But that nag, 
Though he 'd had a hard day, did n't tremble or sag. 

Then the lightning would flash, 

And the thunder would crash 

With a terrible din. 
They were eager to catch him; but he would just neigh, 
Squint back to make sure, and then gallop away. 
Well, this made the storm the more furious yet, 
And we raced and we raced, but he was n't upset, 

And he would n't give in ! 
At last when we got to the foot of the hill 

At the end of the trail, 
By the stream where our white gipsy castle was set, 
And the boys from the camp came a-waving their caps, 

At a word he stood still, 
To be hugged by the girls and be praised by the chaps. 

We had beaten the gale, 
And Selim was dry as a bone — well, perhaps, 

Just a little bit damp on the tip of his tail.* 

* Readers will be reminded by this conclusion of Mark Twain's 
story of the fast horse as told to him by Oudinot, of the Sandwich 
Islands, and recorded in " The Galaxy " for April, 1871. In that 
veracious narrative it is related that not a single drop fell on the 
driver, but the dog was swimming behind the wagon all the way. 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 177 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Silence was envious of the only voice 

That mightier seemed than she. So, cloaked as Death, 

With potion borrowed from Oblivion, 

Yet with slow step and tear-averted look, 

She sealed his lips, closed his extinguished eyes, 

And veiling him with darkness, deemed him dead. 

But no! — There 's something vital in the great 

That blunts the edge of Death, and sages say 

You should stab deep if you would kill a king. 

In vain! The conqueror's conqueror he remains, 

Surviving his survivors. And as when, 

The prophet gone, his least disciple stands 

Newly invested with a twilight awe, 

So linger men beside his listeners 

While they recount that miracle of speech 

And the hushed wonder over which it fell. 

What do they tell us of that fabled voice? 
Breathing an upper air, wherein he dwelt 
'Mid shifting clouds a mountain of resolve, 
And falling like Sierra's April flood 



178 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

That pours in ponderous cadence from the cliff, 
Waking Yosemite from her sleep of snow, 
And less by warmth than by its massive power 
Thawing a thousand torrents into one. 
Such was his speech, and were his fame to die 
Such for its requiem alone were fit: 
Some kindred voice of Nature, as the Sea 
When autumn tides redouble their lament 
On Marshfield shore; some elemental force 
Kindred to Nature in the mind of man — 
A far-felt, rhythmic, and resounding wave 
Of Homer, or a freedom-breathing wind 
Sweeping the height of Milton's loftiest mood. 
Most fit of all, could his own words pronounce 
His eulogy, eclipsing old with new, 
As though a dying star should burst in light. 

And yet he spoke not only with his voice. 

His full brow, buttressing a dome of thought, 

Moved the imagination like the rise 

Of some vast temple covering nothing mean. 

His eyes were sibyls' caves, wherein the wise 

Read sibyls' secrets; and the iron clasp 

Of those broad lips, serene or saturnine, 

Made proclamation of majestic will. 

His glance could silence like a frowning Fate. 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 179 

His mighty frame was refuge, while his mien 
Did make dispute of stature with the gods. 

See, in the Senate, how his presence towers 

Above the tallest, who but seem as marks 

To guide the unwonted gaze to where he stands, 

First of his peers — a lordly company. 

Each State still gave the others of its best — 

Our second race of giants, now, alas! 

Buried beneath the lava-beds of war. 

Not yet had weaklings trod the purchased path 

To a feigned honor in the curule chair, 

Holding a world's contempt of them for fame — 

As one should take the leaves stripped from his scourge 

To wreathe himself a counterfeit of bay. 

An age is merely Man, and, thus compact, 

Must grimly expiate paternal sins; 

That age's shame stands naked to the world, 

And no man dares to hide it; yet one boast 

Palsies the pointing finger of to-day: 

'T was slave, not master, that we bought and sold. 

Oh, for fit word of scorn to execrate 
Our brood new-born of Greed and Liberty! 
Not the blind mass of stumbling ignorance 
(For the dread portent of a blackening cloud 



i8o THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

May by bold shafts of sunlight be dispersed), 
But those who lead them to the nation's hurt — 
These our kind neighbors, semblances of men, 
The Church's bulwark, the beloved of homes, 
Locked fast in friendship's ever-loyal pledge, 
Yet to whom treason is their daily breath. 
Not Lucifer, on each conspiring wind 
Rallying his abject crew to new assaults; 
Not all the recreant names that spawning War 
Has cursed with immortality, can match 
The craft of their betrayals. All is sold: 
Law, justice, mercy, and the future's hope — 
This land that buoys the fainting fears of Man. 
Yet to praise Webster one of these has dared ! — 
Webster, undaunted by the hour's reproof, 
Webster, untempted by the hour's applause, 
Who scorned to win by any art but truth ! 
Who, had he heard the impious flattery, 
Across the Senate would have launched his wrath, 
Like Cicero on cowering Catiline, 
In one white passion that forevermore 
Had saved to Infamy an empty name 
That now he spurns in silence from his grave. 

Yet had he frailties, which let those recount 
Who have not seen the nigh-o'erwhelmed state 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 181 

Rescued from peril by some roisterer's skill 

While all the petted virtues of the home 

Stood pale and helpless. Time 's a mountain-wall 

That gives a fainter echo to one's best, 

But unto weak or wanting, mere disdain. 

He had his passions — all but one are dead : 

That was his country. Never lover loved, 

Soldier defended, poet praised, as he, 

Who marveled all should worship not his queen, 

And unto whoso loved her much forgave. 

And when, one desperate day, the threatening hand 

His hand so long arrested, he being gone, 

Felt 'neath its pillow for the unsheath'd sword, 

Who spoke for Union but with Webster's voice ? 

Who struck for Union but with Webster's arm? 

Forgetful of the father in the son, 

Men praised in Lincoln what they blamed in him. 

And though, his natural tenderness grown grave, 

He lives not in Love's immortality 

Like Lincoln, shrined within his foeman's heart; 

Though he trod not the path of him whose soul 

Triumphed in song that beckoned armies on 

More than persuading drum, dare-devil fife, 

Or clarion bugle ; though no battle-flame 

Rose to a peak in him : yet was his blood 

In heroes and his wrath in righteous war. 



182 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Then did the vision of his patriot hope, 
Pictured in pleading but in warning words, 
Inspire the inspirers, nerve the halting brave, 
Make triflers solemn with the choice of death. 
And when at last came Peace, the friend of all, 
Grateful and wondrous as first drops of rain 
After the long starvation of the drought, 
Men harkened back to that prophetic hour 
When two protagonists, like chosen knights, 
Made long and suave epitome of war: 
When Hayne arose 't was Sumter's gun was heard, 
When Webster closed 't was Appomattox field. 

But oh, his larger triumph was to come! 

His voice, in victory potent, was in peace 

Predominant. His all-benignant thought 

That, never wavering through the strife of words, 

No Alleghanies, no Potomac knew, 

Searching the future to bring olive back, 

Lived like a fragrance in the heart of Grant, 

And at the perilous moment of success 

Pointed the path to concord from the grave. 

And what famed concord ! — not a grudging truce, 

Nor interlude of hate, but peace divine : 

When hands with blood still wet again were clasped, 

Each foe forgiving what is ne'er forgot ; 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 183 

The hacked sword eager for the scabbard's rest, 
Not from the fear, but for the love of man. 
Oh, loftier conquest of the Blue, that warred 
For freedom, not for conquest! Victory, 
Unsought, of all the hardly vanquished Gray! 
Marvel of Europe staggering in arms; 
Message of Hope unto the souls that herd 
Dumb at the slaughter for the whim of kings; 
Lusus of History until wars shall cease. 
My country! since nor memory of strife, 
Nor natural vengeance, nor the orphan's tears 
Can from Love's nobler triumph hale thee back: 
Who worthier than thou to lead the way 
Unto the everlasting Truce of God, 
When brothers shall toward brothers over sea 
Stretch not the sword-blade, but the open palm, 
Till on Time's long but ever-upward slope 
They mount together to unreckoned heights, 
And grateful nations gladly follow them! 
• •••••••• 

So sang I, proud to be but one of all 

The sands upon a shore whereon there breaks, 

Freighted with purpose vast, the will of Heaven — 

When a rude clash I heard, that yet I hear, 

As Discord grasped again her rusted harp 

And struck new terror from the raveled strings, 



184 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Calling Ambition blindfold to the lead 
Of Want, Dishonor, Perfidy, and Crime, 
Who in their turn misguide the innocent, 
Groping their way by the last firebrands 
Plucked from their holocaust of hoarded truth. 
The air we fancied peaceful as the noon 
Was dark with sudden hatred, as with cloud 
Blown, in long-gathered tempest, from the West, 
Like a wild storm of summer heat and wind* 
Circling in passion, bruited by dismay, 
And dragging death and chaos in its train, 
As some old myth of savagery come true, 
And Nature had turned demon, rending Man. 

This madness Webster still can medicine, 

Who was physician to its earlier taint. 

He did not fury then with fury meet, 

But to the sanity of eternal law 

Wooed back the wandering mind. Who could forget 

His calming presence when, ere he began, 

Confusion fled before his morning look 

Of power miraculously new and mild; 

The speech as temperate as a wind of May; 

The mind as candid as the noonday light; 

The tones deliberate, confident, sedate, 

Waking no passion, and yet moving all 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 185 

With such a high compulsion that at length 
Reason, the king that well-nigh had been lost 
Upon the confines of his sovereign realm, 
Remounted to the throne with steady step, 
And men again were proud of his control. 

So, in these days of hopeful hearts' despair, 

When perils threat, ay, throng the ship of state, 

And less from gale without than torch within, 

Who — who but Webster with his faith serene 

Shall rouse the sleeping to command their fate, 

Shall bid them steer by the unswerving stars, 

And in them troth with Liberty renew? 

Imagination gave his spirit wings, 

That, seeing past the tempest and the flame, 

He might remind us of our destiny: 

To save from faction what was meant for Man; 

To cherish brotherhood, simplicity, 

The chance for each that is the hope for all; 

To guard the realm from Sloth, and Greed, and Waste — 

The sateless Gorgons of democracy; 

And above all, whatever storm may rage, 

To cling to Law, the path of Liberty, 

The prop of heaven, the very pulse of God. 

Thus our new soil, the home of every seed, 

Where first the whole world meets on equal terms, 



l86 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Shall such new marvels show of man's estate 
In knowledge, wisdom, beauty, virtue, power, 
The Past shall fade in pity or in scorn, 
While fresher joys shall thrill the pulse of earth. 

No, Webster's fame not Webster's self can blot. 

Fair is perfection's image in the soul, 

And yearning for it holds the world to good. 

Yet is it such a jewel as may not 

Unto a single guardian be entrust, 

But to the courage of a multitude 

Who all together have what each may lack. 

Though men may falter, it is Virtue's strength 

To be indelible: our smallest good 

By our worst evil cannot be undone. 

The discords of that life — how short they fall, 

Like ill-strung arrows ! But its harmonies — 

Harmonious speech large with harmonious thought 

Dwell in a nation's peace, a nation's hope, 

Imperishable music; not the rhythm 

Of some remembering moment, but the peal 

And crash of conflict unforgettable 

Piercing the mid and thick of night. No, no, 

That voice of thunder died not with the storm, 

But in the dull and coward times of peace 

Long shall its echoes rouse the patriot's heart. 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 



The War of Independence was virtually a second Eng- 
lish civil war. The ruin of the American cause would 
have been also the ruin of the constitutional cause in 
England; and a patriotic Englishman may revere the 
memory of Patrick Henry and George Washington not 
less justly than the patriotic American. 

— John Morley, on Burke. 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 191 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 



England, thou breeder of heroes and of bards, 

Had ever nation manlier shield or song! 

For thee such rivalry have sword and pen, 

Fame, from her heaped green, crowns with equal hand 

The deathless deed and the immortal word, 

For which dost thou thy Sidney hold more dear, 

Defense of England or of Poesie? 

Cromwell or Milton — if man's guiding stars 

Could vanish as they came — which wouldst thou spare? 

Lost Kempenfelt indeed, were Cowper mute! 

To victory, not alone on shuddering seas 

Rode Nelson, but on Campbell's tossing rhyme. 

Hark to thy great Duke's greater dirge, and doubt 

For which was Waterloo the worthier won, 

To change the tyrant on a foreign throne, 

Or add a faultless ode to English song. 

Great deeds make poets : by whose nobler word, 

In turn, the blood of heroes is transfused 



192 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

Into the veins of sluggards, till they rise, 
Surprised, exalted to the height of men. 

Nor can Columbia choose between the two 

Which give more glory to thy Minster gloom. 

They are our brave, our deathless, our divine — 

Our Saxon grasp on their embattled swords, 

Our Saxon numbers in their lyric speech. 

We grudge no storied wreath, nay, would withhold 

Of bay or laurel not one envied leaf. 

Then, on thy proud cliff fronting Europe-ward, 

Strong in thyself, not by some weaker prop, 

Give to the greeting of a kindred voice 

A moment in the ebb of thy disdain. 



Is it but chance that in thy treasured verse 
There is no paean, no exulting line, 
No phrase of martial fervor, to record 
The Briton's prowess on our Western shore? 
There was no lapse of valiance in thy race — 
Or else had Time forgot to mark the years. 
Nor hast thou since had lack of many a voice 
Whose words, like wings to seed, on every air 
From land to hospitable land import 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 193 

Thy progeny of courage, justice, truth. 
Why, then, when all our songs were resonant, 
Were all thy singers silent? Candor, speak! 
There is a daemon makes the Muses dumb 
When they would praise the wrong : but Liberty 
From Nature has inheritance of speech — 
The forest harp, the flood's processional, 
The glorious antiphone of every shore, 
When these are dumb, then poets may be mute ! 

m 

Taught by thy heroes, summoned by thy bards, 
Against the imperious folly of thy kings 
Twice our reluctant banners were arrayed. 
What matter if the victors were not thine, 
If thine the victories? Thou art more secure 
Saved from the canker of successful wrong. 
Thou dost not blush for Naseby, where, of old, 
England most conquered, conquering Englishmen. 
So when thou hear'st the trumpets in our verse 
In praise of our new land's deliverance, 
Hard won from Winter, Hunger, and from thee, 
And from those allies thou didst hire and scorn, 
Deem it not hatred, nor the vulgar pride 
Of the arena, nor the greed of fame. 



194 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

(Twixt men or nations, there 's no victory 

Save when an angel overcomes in both.) 

Would all our strife were blameless ! Some, alas ! 

Hath trophies hoarded only to be hid, 

For courage cannot hallow wanton war. 

Be proud our hand against thee ne'er was raised 

But to wrench English justice from thy grasp. 

And, as to landsmen, far from windy shores, 

The breathing shell may bear the murmuring sea, 

Still in our patriot song reverberates 

The mighty voice that sang at Hampden's side. 

IV 

True, there are those of our impassioned blood 

Who can forget but slowly that thy great 

Misread the omens of our later strife, 

And knew not Freedom when she called to thee. 

These think they hate thee ! — these, who have embraced 

Before the altar their fraternal foes ! 

Not white of York and red of Lancaster 

More kindly mingle in thy rose of peace 

Than blend in cloudless dawn our blue and gray. 

Already Time and History contend 

For sinking rampart and the grassy ridge 

That with its challenge startles pilgrim feet 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 195 

Along the fringes of the wounded wood. 

The bedtime wonder of our children holds 

Vicksburg coeval with the siege of Troy, 

And the scorned slave so hastened to forgive 

The scar has lost remembrance of the lash. 

Since Love has drawn the sting of that distress, 

For one with wrath to compass sea and years 

Were but to make of injury a jest, 

Holding the occasion guiltier than the cause. 

But Hate 's a weed that withers in the sun; 

A cell of which the prisoner holds the key, 

His will his jailer; nay, a frowning tower 

Invincible by legions, but with still 

One secret weakness : who can hate may love. 

Oh, pausing in thy cordon of the globe, 

Let one full drop of English blood be spilled 

For Liberty, not England : men would lose 

Their fancied hatred in an ardor new, 

As Minas Channel turns to Fundy's tide. 

Hate thee ? Hast thou forgot red Pei-ho's stream, 

The triple horror of the ambuscade, 

The hell of battle, the foredoomed assault, 

When thou didst stand the champion of the world, 

Though the awed sea for once deserted thee? 

Who then sprang to thee, breaking from the bonds 

Of old observance, with a human cry. 



196 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

Thirsting to share thy glorious defeat 
As men are wont to covet victory ? 
Hate thee? Hast thou forgot Samoa's reef, 
The day more dark than any starless night, 
The black storm buffeting the hopeless ships, 
The struggle of thy sons, and, as they won, 
Gaining the refuge of the furious deep, 
The immortal cheers that shook the Trenton's deck, 
As Death might plead with Nature for the brave? 
Stands there no monument upon that strand? 
Then let remembrance build a beacon high, 
That long its warning message may remind 
How common danger stirs the brother heart. 



Why turn the leaf back to an earlier page? 
To-day, not moved by memory or fear, 
But by the vision of a nobler time, 
Millions cry toward thee in a passion of peace. 
We need thee, England, not in armed array 
To stand beside us in the empty quarrels 
That kings pursue, ere War itself expire 
Like an o'er-armored knight in desperate lunge 
Beneath the weight of helmet and of lance; 
But now, in conflict with an inner foe 
Who shall in conquering either conquer both. 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 197 

For it is written in the book of fate: 

By no sword save her own falls Liberty. 

A wondrous century trembles at its dawn, 

Conflicting currents telling its approach ; 

And while men take new reckonings from the peaks, 

Reweigh the jewel and retaste the wine, 

Be ours to guard against the impious hands 

That, like rash children, tamper with that blade. 

Thou, too, hast seen the vision : shall it be 

Only a dream, caught in the web of night, 

Lost through the coarser meshes of the day? 

Or like the beauty of the prismic bow, 

Which the sun's ardor, that creates, consumes? 

Oh, may it be the thing we image it ! — 

The beckoning spirit of our common race 

Floating before us in a fringe of light 

With Duty's brow, Love's eyes, the smile of Peace; 

Benignant figure of compelling mien, 

Star-crowned, star-girdled, and o'erstrewn with stars, 

As though a constellation should descend 

To be fit courier to a glorious age. 

VI 

O thou that keepest record of the brave, 
Something of us to thee is lost, more worth 
Than all the fabled wealth of sibyls' leaves. 



198 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

Not with dull figures, but with heroes' deeds, 
Fill up those empty annals. Teach thy youth 
To know not North's but Byron's Washington; 
To follow Hale's proud step as tearfully 
As we pale Andre's. And when next thy sons 
Stand in Manhattan gazing at the swirl 
Of eddying trade from Trinity's brown porch, 
Astonished, with the praise that half defames, 
At the material greatness of the scene, — 
The roar, the fret, the Babel-towers of trade, — 
Let one stretch forth a hand and touch the stone 
That covers Lawrence, saying, " To this height 
Our English blood has risen." And to know 
The sea still speaks of courage, let them learn 
What murmurs it of Craven in one bay, 
And what of Cushing shouts another shore. 
(Find but one star, how soon the sky is full! 
One hero summons hundreds to the field : 
So to the memory. ) Let them muse on Shaw, 
Whose bones the deep did so begrudge the land 
It sent its boldest waves to bring them back 
Unto the blue-domed Pantheon where they lie, 
The while his soul still leads in martial bronze; 
Tell them of sweet-dirged Winthrop, whom to name 
Is to be braver, as one grows more pure 
Breathing the thought of lover or of saint; 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 199 

Grim Jackson, Covenanter of the South, 

And her well-christened Sidney, fallen soon; 

Kearny and Lyon. Of such hearts as these 

Who would not boast were braggart of all else. 

Each fought for Right — and conquered with the Best. 

Such graves are all the ruins that we have — 

Our broken arch and battlement — to tell 

That ours, like thine, have come of Arthur's race. 

O England, wakened from thy lull of song, 
Thy scepter, sword, and spindle, fasces-like, 
Bound with fresh laurel as thy sign of strength, 
When shalt thou win us with a theme of ours, 
Reclaiming thus thine own, till men shall say: 
" That was the noblest conquest of her rule "? 

New York, 1897. 




HI 
ITALIAN RHAPSODY 

AND OTHER POEMS 






TO WILLIAM FAYAL CLARKE 



POEMS OF ITALY 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 207 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY* 



Dear Italy ! The sound of thy soft name 

Soothes me with balm of Memory and Hope. 
Mine, for the moment, height and sweep and slope 
That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim 
To flee the cold and gray 
Of our December day, 
And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming 
flame. 

11 

There are who deem remembered beauty best, 
And thine, imagined, fairer is than sight 
Of all the charms of other realms confessed, 
Thou miracle of sea and land and light. 
Was it lest, envying thee, 
The world unhappy be, 
Benignant Heaven gave to all the all-consoling Night ? 

* Read before the Mother Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa 
Fraternity, William and Mary College, February 10, 1002. 



208 ITALIAN RHAPSODY 



in 



Remembered beauty best? Who reason so? 
Not lovers, yearning to the same dumb star 
That doth disdain their passion — who, afar, 
Seek touch and voice in velvet winds and low. 
No, storied Italy, 
Not thine that heresy, 
Thou who thyself art fairer far than Fancy e'er can 
show. 

IV 

To me thou art an ever-brooding spell ; 

An old enchantment, exorcised of wrong; 
A beacon, whereagainst the wings of Song 
Are bruised so, they cannot fly to tell ; 
A mistress, at whose feet 
A myriad singers meet, 
To find thy beauty the despair of measures full and 
sweet. 

v 

Of old, ere caste or custom froze the heart, 

What tales of thine did Chaucer re-indite,— 
Of Constance, and Griselda, and the plight 

Of pure Cecilia, — all with joyous art ! 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 209 

Oh, to have journeyed down 
To Canterbury town, 
And known, from lips that touched thy robe, that triad 
of renown! 



VI 

Fount of Romance whereat our Shakspere drank! 
Through him the loves of all are linked to thee 
By Romeo's ardor, Juliet's constancy. 
He sets the peasant in the royal rank ; 

Shows under mask and paint 
Kinship of knave and saint, 
And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and 
Ariel's prank. 

VII 

Another English foster-child hadst thou 

When Milton from the breast of thy delight 
Drew inspiration. With a vestal's vow 

He fed the flame caught from thy sacred light. 
And when upon him lay 
The long eclipse of day, 
Thou wert the memory-hoarded treasure of his doomed 
sight. 



2io ITALIAN RHAPSODY 



VIII 

Name me a poet who has trod thy soil ; 

He is thy lover, ever hastening back, 
With thee forgetting weariness and toil, 
The nightly sorrow for the daily lack. 
How oft our lyric race 
Looked last upon thy face ! 
Oh, would that 1 were worthy thus to die in thine 
embrace ! 

IX 

Oh, to be kin to Keats, but as a part 

Of the same Roman earth! — to sleep, unknown, 
Not far from Shelley of the virgin heart, 

Where not one tomb is envious of a throne; 
Where the proud pyramid, 
To brighter glory bid, 
Gives Cestius his longed-for fame, marking immortal 
Art. 



Or, in loved Florence, to repose beside 

Our trinity of singers ! Fame enough 

To neighbor lordly Landor, noble Clough, 

And her, our later sibyl, sorrow-eyed. 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 211 

Oh, tell me — not their arts, 
But their Italian hearts 
Won for their dust that narrow oval, than the world 
more wide ! 

XI 

So might I lie where Browning should have lain, 

My "Italy" for all the world to read, 
Like his on the palazzo. For thy pain 
In losing from thy rosary that bead, 
England accords thee room 
Around his minster tomb — 
A province conquered of thy soul, and not an Arab 
slain ! 



XII 



Then take these lines, and add to them the lay, 

All inarticulate, I to thee indite : 
The sudden longing on the sunniest day, 

The happy sighing in the stormiest night, 
The tears of love that creep 
From eyes unwont to weep, 
Full with remembrance, blind with joy, and with 
devotion deep. 



212 ITALIAN RHAPSODY 

XIII 

Absence from thee is such as men endure 

Between the glad betrothal and the bride ; 
Or like the years that Youth, intense and sure, 
From his ambition to his goal must bide. 
And if no more I may 
Mount to Fiesole . . . 
Oh, then were Memory meant for those to whom is 
Hope denied. 

XIV 

Show me a lover who hath drunk by night 
Thy beauty-potion, as the grape the dew : 
'T were little wonder he were poet too, 
With wine of song in unexpected might, 
While moonlit cloister calls 
With plashy fountain- falls, 
Or darkened Arno moves to music with its mirrored 
light. 

xv 

Who can withstand thee? What distress or care 
But yields to Naples, or that long day-dream 

We know as Venice, where alone more fair 

Noon is than night; where every lapping stream 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 213 

Wooes with a soft caress 
Our new-world weariness, 
And every ripple smiles with joy at sight of scene so 
rare. 



XVI 



The mystery of thy charm— ah, who hath guessed? 
'T was ne'er divined by day or shown in sleep ; 
Yet sometimes Music, floating from her steep, 
Holds to our lips a chalice brimmed and blest : 
Then know we that thou art 
Of the Ideal part — 
Of Man's one thirst that is not quenched, drink he 
howe'er so deep. 



XVII 

Thou human-hearted land, whose revels hold 
Man in communion with the antique days, 
And summon him from prosy greed to ways 
Where Youth is beckoning to the Age of Gold ; 
How thou dost hold him near 
And whisper in his ear 
Of the lost Paradise that lies beyond the alluring haze ! 



214 ITALIAN RHAPSODY 

XVIII 

In tears I tossed my coin from Trevi's edge,-^ 
A coin unsordid as a bond of love, — 
And, with the instinct of the homing dove, 
I gave to Rome my rendezvous and pledge. 
And when imperious Death 
Has quenched my flame of breath, 
Oh, let me join the faithful shades that throng that 
fount above. 



THE HOUR OF AWE 215 



THE HOUR OF AWE 

Not in the five-domed wonder 
Where the soul of Venice lies, 

When the sun cleaves the gloom asunder 
With pathways to Paradise, 

And the organ's melodious thunder 
Summons you to the skies ; 

Not in that rarest hour, 

When over the Arno's rush 

The City of Flowers' flower 
Looms in the sunset flush, 

And the poignant stroke from the tower 
Pierces the spirit's hush; 

Not Rome's high vault's devising 
That builded the heavens in, 

When you know not the anthem's rising 
From the song of the cherubin, 

Where, sight and soul surprising, 
Dusk utters your dearest sin : 



216 THE HOUR OF AWE 

Not these — nor the star-sown splendor, 
Nor the deep wood's mystery, 

Nor the sullen storm's surrender 
To the ranks of the leaping sea, 

Nor the joy of the springtime tender 
On Nature's breast to be; 

But to find in a woman's weeping 
The look you have longed to find, 

And know that in Time's safe-keeping, 
Through all the ages blind, 

Was Love, like a winged seed, sleeping, 
For you and the waiting wind. 



TITIAN'S TWO LOVES, IN THE BORGHESE 217 



TITIAN'S TWO LOVES, IN THE BORGHESE 

One forgets not the first dead he sorrowed over ; 
One forgets not the first kiss of the first lover. 
Not the dust of ages could remembrance cover 
How in Titian's golden kingdom first I strayed. 

Oh, that Roman morning's azure, softly sifting 
Through the gray, the while the rapt eye caught the 

rifting 
Of the sun's rich fire where molten mists were drifting, 
As one looks upon an opal gently swayed. 

Ah ! but in the palace there was sun more golden ! 
Art for once to Nature was no more beholden. 
Man to his beloved had the passion olden 

Sung in color, and his mighty Love grew Fame. 

For I guessed, while hotly others were contending 
Which was Love Divine, that each to each was lending 
Supplemental graces for a perfect blending — 
That to paint one twofold woman was his aim. 



218 TITIAN'S TWO LOVES, IN THE BORGHESE 

One without the other's beauty were but torso : 
Human needs divine, ah, yes, and — maybe more so- 
By divine is needed. ( Singing down the Corso 
I, elate, enthralled, went, happy just to be!) 

Yet till thee at last I knew — each blended feature 
Where the two Loves meet in rightly balanced nature- 
Never had I known a tithe of Titian's creature : 
God, the master limner, painted both in thee. 



POEMS ON PUBLIC EVENTS 



THE LISTENING SWORD 221 



THE LISTENING SWORD 

(written on the eve or the Spanish war; 

Still on the hilt, O Patience, keep thy hand ! 

Though in the sheath the uneasy sword may leap 

That waits, and, for its waiting, cannot sleep. 
For it doth envy Arthur's knightly brand 
And each fame-wreathed weapon, hero-manned, 

That the world's freemen in remembrance keep. 

Oh, how can steel be deaf when nations weep 
With the loud sobbing of the desolate strand ! 

Are there who think, " The hilt hears, not the blade, 
Snug in its silence " ? Ah, from storms upcaught 
Fall not too soon the lightnings of the Lord. 
Justice, thou God in Man, when thou hast weighed 
All in thy balance, show us what we ought. 

Then, Patience, not till then, loose the appointed 
sword. 

March 30, 1898. 



222 DEWEY A T MANILA 



DEWEY AT MANILA 



'T was the very verge of May 
When the bold Olympia led 

Into Boca Grande gray 

Dewey's squadron, dark and dread 

Creeping past Corregidor, 

Guardian of Manila's shore. 

Do they sleep who wait the fray? 

Is the moon so dazzling bright 
That our cruisers' battle-gray 

Melts into the misty light ? . . . 
Ah! the rockets flash and soar! 
Wakes at last Corregidor! 

All too late their screaming shell 
Tears the silence with its track. 

This is but the gate of Hell ; 
We 've no leisure to turn back. 

Answer, Boston — then once more 

Slumber on, Corregidor! 



DEWEY AT MANILA 223 

And as, like a slowing tide, 

Onward still the vessels creep, 
Dewey, watching, falcon-eyed, 

Orders: " Let the gunners sleep; 
For we meet a foe at four 
Fiercer than Corregidor." 

Well they slept, for well they knew 
What the morrow taught us all — 

He was wise (as well as true) 
Thus upon the foe to fall. 

Long shall Spain the day deplore 

Dewey ran Corregidor. 



May is dancing into light 

As the Spanish Admiral, 
From a dream of phantom fight, 

Wakens at his sentry's call. 
Shall he leave Cavite's lee, 
Hunt the Yankee fleet at sea? 

O Montojo, to thy deck, 

That to-day shall float its last! 
Quick ! To quarters ! Yonder speck 

Grows a hull of portent vast. , 



224 DEWEY AT MANILA 

Hither, toward Cavite's lee 
Comes the Yankee hunting thee! 

Not for fear of hidden mine 
Halts our doughty Commodore. 

He, of old heroic line, 

Follows Farragut once more, 

Hazards all on victory, 

Here within Cavite's lee. 

If he loses, all is gone; 

He will win because he must. 
And the shafts of yonder dawn 

Are not quicker than his thrust. 
Soon, Montojo, he shall be 
With thee in Cavite's lee. 

Now, Manila, to the fray ! 

Show the hated Yankee host 
This is not a holiday — 

Spanish blood is more than boast. 
Fleet and mine and battery, 
Crush him in Cavite's lee! 

Lo, Hell's geysers at our fore 
Pierce the plotted path — in vain 

Nerving every man the more 
With the memory of the Maine! 



DEWEY AT MANILA 225 

Now at last our guns are free 
Here within Cavite's lee. 

" Gridley," says the Commodore, 
" You may fire when ready." Then 

Long and loud, like lions' roar 
When a rival dares the den, 

Breaks the awful cannonry 

Full across Cavite's lee. 

Who shall tell the thrilling tale 

Of Our Thunderbolt's attack, 
Finding, when the chart should fail, 

By the lead his dubious track, 
Five ships following faithfully 
Five times o'er Cavite's lee; 

Of our gunners' deadly aim; 

Of the gallant foe and brave 
Who, unconquered, faced with flame, 

Seek the mercy of the wave — 
Choosing honor in the sea 
Underneath Cavite's lee ! 

Let the meed the victors gain 

Be the measure of their task. 
Less of flinching, stouter strain, 

Fiercer combat — who could ask? 



226 DEWEY AT MANILA 

And "surrender " — 'twas a word 
That Cavite ne'er had heard. 

Noon — the woeful work is done. 

Not a Spanish ship remains; 
But, of their eleven, none 

Ever was so truly Spain's ! 
Which is prouder, they or we, 
Thinking of Cavite's lee? 

Envoi 

But remember, when we 've ceased 
Giving praise and reckoning odds, 

Man shares courage with the beast, 
Wisdom cometh from the gods. 

Who would win, on land or wave, 

Must be wise as well as brave. 

May 10, 1898. 



THE WELCOME OF OUR TEARS 227 

THE WELCOME OF OUR TEARS 

(on the return of a regiment from 
the spanish war) 

Now is the time to be glad ! 

Now is the time to be gay ! 
With welcome the city is mad, 

And the flags and the wind are at play. 
There, down the street full of faces 

(Like a furrow that Joy has plowed), 
The heart and the eye run races 

Which first shall greet the proud 

Nearer and nearer they come ! 

I can tell by the cheer and the shou 
That keep just ahead of the drum 

Where the little flags break out. 
I can tell by the blood's quick leaping 

My sluggish veins along, 
I can tell by my footstep keeping 

The rhythm of battle-song. 

Against them the sword of the Cid 

In the hand of a haughty foe; 
Against them the jungle that hid 

Iron-fanged serpents a-row; 



228 THE WELCOME OF OUR TEARS 

Against them the storm and the baking 
Of sun on the rain-drenched skin; 

Against them the fever's aching, 
Against them our civic sin. 

Here they are ! father and lad. 

Now let us cheer them — but stay! 
Too haggard that face to be glad, 

Too weary those feet to be gay. 
God ! are these phantoms the handsome 

Young knights that went, eager to save? 
O Freedom, is this then the ransom 

We give for the starved and the slave? 

They whom we welcome to-day — 

Why do the shout and the cheer 
Lining each step of their way 

Seem like a dirge and a tear? 
Is it that some may be wearing 

Laurels of others? Ay, see! 
Count the thin ranks of the daring : 

Each wears his laurels for three! 

And we thought it a time to be glad ! 
And we thought it a time to be gay ! 

New York, September 22, 1898. 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER 229 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER 

Every week of every season out of English ports go 

forth 
White of sail or white of trail, East, or West, or South, 

or North, 
Scattering like a flight of pigeons, half a hundred home- 
sick ships, 
Bearing half a thousand striplings — each with kisses 

on his lips 
Of some silent mother, fearful lest she show herself too 

fond, 
Giving him to bush or desert as one pays a sacred bond. 
- — Tell us, you who hide your heartbreak, Which is 

sadder, when all 's done, 
To repine, an English mother, or to roam, an English 

son? 

You who shared your babe's first sorrow when his cheek 
no longer pressed 

On the perfect, snow-and-roseleaf beauty of your mother- 
breast, 



230 AN ENGLISH MOTHER 

In the rigor of his nurture was your woman's mercy mute, 
Knowing he was doomed to exile with the savage and 

the brute? 
Did you school yourself to absence, all his adolescent 

years, 
That, though you be torn with parting, he should never 

see the tears, 
Now his ship has left the offing for the many-mouthed 

sea, 
This your guerdon, empty heart, by empty bed to bend 

the knee! 



And if he be but the latest thus to leave your dwindling 
board, 

Is a sorrow less for being added to a sorrow's hoard ? 

Is the mother-pain the duller that to-day his brothers 
stand, 

Facing ambuscades of Congo or alarms of Zululand? 

Toil, where blizzards drift the snow like smoke across 
the plains of death? 

Faint, where tropic fens at morning stream with fever- 
laden breath? 

Die, that in some distant river's veins the English blood 
may run — 

Mississippi, Yangtze, Ganges, Nile, Mackenzie, Amazon? 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER . 231 

Ah ! you still must wait and suffer in a solitude untold 
While your sisters of the nations call you passive, call 

you cold — 
Still must scan the news of sailings, breathless search 

the slow gazette, 
Find the dreaded name . . . and, later, get his blithe 

farewell ! And yet — 
Shall the lonely at the hearthstone shame the legions 

who have died 
Grudging not the price their country pays for progress 

and for pride? 
— Nay; but, England, do not ask us thus to emulate 

your scars 
Until women's tears are reckoned in the budgets of your 

wars. 

1899. 



232 " THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" 



"THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" 

What is the White Man's burden? 

Does destiny demand 
His back be laden higher 

By every dusky hand ? 
Am I my brother's keeper — 

Or keeper of his land ? 

What is the White Man's burden? 

Is it the mounting flood 
Of treasure, vain to vanquish 

The tides of patriot blood, 
While our supremest jewel 

Is trampled in the mud? 

What is the White Man's burden 
That weighs upon his sleep? 

To hear the hundreds dying ? 
To see the thousands weep ? 

Oh, wanton war that haunts him! 
Oh, seed that he must reap ! 



" THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" 233 

What is the White Man's burden — 

The burden of his song 
That once was " Peace and Justice; 

The Weak beside the Strong " ? 
He falters in the singing 

At memory of the wrong. 

What though our vaunt of Freedom 

Must evermore be mute, 
And the trading of men's vices 

Drag both below the brute? 
Go bribe new ships to bring it — 

The White Man's burden — loot! 



234 ON READING OF ATROCITIES IN WAR 



ON READING OF ATROCITIES IN WAR 

Mild is the air of April, 

Gentle the sky above, 
And the budding and the mating 

Call for a song of love; 
But the season on my singing 

Has lost its olden spell 
Because of a shame and sorrow 

Men close their eyes to tell. 

I see but the tears of women 

In the rain of the springtime flood ; 
I cannot brook the flowers — 

They only smell of blood. 
Sad is the playground frolic — 

Its joy and laughter melt 
In the moan of children sobbing 

From jungle and from veldt. 

O ye in the halls of council, 

You may conquer the distant foe, 

But still before a higher court 
Your needless wars must go. 



ON READING OF ATROCITIES IN WAR 235 

Too much you ask of silence; 

Too fierce the iron heel. 
Because one statesman blundered 

Must every heart be steel ? 

O Britain! O Columbia! 

Too much of sodden strife. 
Back to the banished gospel — 

The sacredness of life ! 
Else shall our ties of language 

And law and race and fame 
Be naught to the bond that binds us 

In one eternal shame. 

April 8, 1902. 



236 THE KEEPER OF THE SWORD 

THE KEEPER OF THE SWORD* 

(APROPOS OF THE DREYFUS TRIAL AT RENNES) 

Hail to that Breton law by which a lord, 

Fate-hounded, — he whose sires had sought the Grail, — 
Left with the State his sword, as Honor's bail, 
While on a western isle he won reward 

Of his brave patience, in a golden hoard ; — 
Speeding from exile (the wide sea a jail 
If but the wrong wind filled his yearning sail ! ) 
To claim once more his heritage and sword. 

France, dost thou heed the omen? 'T was at Rennes! — 
Where one who loved thee, cruel, — loved thee, blind, — 
Now fronts thee proudly with the old demand. 

Oh! . . . thou hast broke it! . . . Haste! the 
fragments find, 
And in the forge of Justice weld again 
That undishonored blade for his forgiving hand. 

August 7, 1899. 

* Readers of the " Sentimental Journey " will recall Sterne's 
account of the custom here referred to, as narrated in the chap- 
ter entitled " The Sword : Rennes." 



REMEMBER WARING1 237 



REMEMBER WARING! 

(THE CITY AGAINST TAMMANY, 1901) 

Again the bugle-blow 
To meet the common foe 

Summons the daring. 
Can ye not hear the call 
Echo from every wall — 

" Remember Waring " ? 

He stormed the fetid street 
Where Death with rapid feet 

Strode fierce and glaring. 
Shall we forget, alone, 
When every grateful stone 

Remembers Waring ? 

He, to your service true; 
He, in his love of you 

Himself not sparing; 
Whom gold could not allure; 
Guardian of rich and poor — 

Our soldier Waring! 



238 REMEMBER WARING! 

He found a wretched throng — 
Rescued from ancient wrong — 

New burdens bearing; 
And babes that he did save 
Cry from a later grave: 

" Remember Waring." 

He dared a tropic hell 
Of fever — till he fell, 

And we, despairing, 
Knew that for us he died, 
And in our grieving cried: 

" Remember Waring! " 

Shall we be less than they 
Who make the poor their prey, 

No least one sparing ? 
They praise him, though they fill 
Each tainted purse; they still 

Remember Waring. 

How shall our deed atone 
That nowhere bronze or stone 

His name is bearing? 
His ashes in their urn 
With his old ardor burn, 

And plead, for Waring: 



REMEMBER WARING! 239 

" Oh, if the work I wrought 
Be to your memory aught, 

Now Greed is tearing 
The crown from Freedom's brow, 
Strike harder that you now 

Remember Waring." 

Then, ere the heart grow cold, 
Let us on altars old 

New vows be swearing: 
" Perish the people's foe! 
Scorn for his tool! " and so 

Remember Waring. 



POEMS OF HEART AND SOUL 



TO ONE BORN ON THE LAST OF NOVEMBER 243 



TO ONE BORN ON THE LAST DAY OF 
NOVEMBER 

Upon this day, divinely blest, 
When thou wert born, as to their guest, 
Three seasons gave thee of their best. 

March brought the graceful stir of Spring; 

April, a tender song to sing; 

May, the most winsome blossoming; 

June gave sweet breath, and that pale flush 
July has deepened in thy blush. 
Repose came with the August hush. 

September blent thy glowing hair 
With glowing temple, as the air 
Of twilight blendeth dark and fair. 

October's dower was so rife 
With treasure, futile further strife, 
And so November gave thee — life. 



244 TO 0NE BORN ON THE LAST OF NOVEMBER 

So keen and icy was the smart 
Of Winter (since he had no part 
In fashioning thy radiant heart), 

He bade December so to plead 
For thee, petitioning his need, 
That the relenting Fates took heed; 

And though November's thou must be, 
Yet nearest Winter (they decree) 
Is set thy gracious ministry. 



MUSIC AND LOVE 245 



MUSIC AND LOVE 

Who longs for music merely longs for Love. 
For Love ; s music, and no minstrel needs 
Save his own sigh to breathe upon the reeds 
From heart too full, and — like the adoring dove 

That cooes all day the darling nest above, 
Content if hour to happy hour succeeds — 
Nor morning's song, nor noon's rich silence, heeds, 
Nor the old mysteries evening whispers of. 

But when the voice is echoless, the hand 

Long empty, then, O wedded harp and flute, 
Remind us Love 's eternal, not Time's toy. 

O viol, at whose door of pain we stand, 
Love in thy muted anguish is not mute, 
But thrills with memory's new-remembered joy. 



246 AT A CONCERT 



AT A CONCERT 

Music inspires me but to think of thee, 

For thou art of the music of the world — 

A strain of that imperishable voice 

That speaks in beauty, harmony, and love. 

When Mozart wakes the gladness of my youth 

I see perpetual childhood in thy face. 

When Chopin, hand in hand with Love, leads on 

Through meadowy pleasures to the verge of pain, 

How near, how tender is thy beating heart! 

And oh, when from the skies Beethoven sounds 

His sure, triumphant song, how it vibrates 

Deep memories of thy reposeful soul! 



AFTER THE SONG 247 

AFTER THE SONG 

(TO e. J. w.) 

If to your wondrous voice and art 
I give not plaudits with the throng, 

T is lest I spill my brimming heart 
And in the singer lose the song. 

Too soon the sweetest cadence dies; 

The vanished vision leaves but this: 
The burden of the things we prize, 

The pathos of the things we miss. 

Oh, for a silence that should hold 

These echoes of delicious sound 
As depths of a still lake enfold 

Brooks that fall fainter bound by bound. 

Yours is the art of Orphic power 

To charm the soul from out its hell — 

Deserts of absence to reflower 
With rose instead of asphodel. 

Like dew on gossamer, a tear 

Lies on the fabric of our dream : 
Despairing hope ! that we who hear 

Might be as noble as you seem. 



248 SONG FOR YOUTH 



SONG FOR YOUTH 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Delay, delay! 
Old Time shall soon, forsooth, 
December make of May. 

Bid him away! 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Oh, stay; oh, stay! 
Nor covet Age uncouth, 
When all is warm and gay 

For you to-day. 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Delay, delay! 
Let others seek for Truth; 
Yours is the time for play 

And dance of fay. 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Oh, stay; oh, stay! 
Time with remorseless tooth 
Shall gnaw your bloom away; 
Then say him nay. 



SONG FOR YOUTH 249 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Delay, delay! 
Age knows for you no ruth; 
Then, till your latest day, 

Hold him at bay. 



250 SONG OF REMEMBRANCE 



SONG OF REMEMBRANCE 

Bird of the swaying bough 
(Like the voice of a lover's vow). 
You shall hold for me ever, as now, 
The thrill of your morning song. 

Bubble of April light 
(Like the glance of a lover's sight), 
You shall into my winter night 
The soul of the noon prolong. 

Cloud of the wind-swept land 
(Like the touch of a lover's hand), 
In the memory you shall stand 

Though you flee from the flaming sky. 

Rose of the scattered bower 
(Like Love's most fragrant hour), 
When shall you lose your power? 
When I no more am I. 



STAR-SONG 251 



STAR-SONG 

When sunset flows into golden glows, 
And the breath of the night is new, 

Love, find afar yon yearning star — 
That is my thought of you. 

And when your eye doth scan the sky 

Your lonely lattice through, 
Choose any one, from sun to sun — 

That is my thought of you. 

And when you wake at the morning's break 

To rival rose and dew, 
The star that stays in the leaping rays — 

That is my thought of you. 



252 SONG FOR A WEDDING-DAY 



SONG FOR A WEDDING-DAY 

Poplar, straight and fair and tall : 
Graceful though your sway, 

Well for your soft rise and fall 
That Helen is away. 

Bud, about whose fragrant side 
All the pleasures play: 

Rose, remember in your pride 
That Helen is away. 

Heart, whose hope she never knew: 
Though other hearts be gay, 

None need ever tell to you 
That Helen is away. 



WITH A TOAST TO THE BRIDE 253 



WITH A TOAST TO THE BRIDE 

They met, they looked, they sighed, they loved; 

Straight each the other chose. 
(Why wait till slow-paced years have proved 

What each by instinct knows?) 
Whate'er mistake we mortals make, 

Sure, none is made above. 
Give prudence to the prudes; there is 

No substitute for love. 

Howe'er the worldly-wise may mate, 

Apart from soul or sense, 
And as undying passion rate 

Their tepid preference, 
Love is the wing that 's sure to bring 

Back to the ark the dove. 
What all their wisdom ? Ah, it is 

No substitute for love. 

And those who by ambition blind 

Would with a title wed, 
That, when they are not sore maligned, 

They may be envied, 



254 WITH A TOAST TO THE BRIDE 

Heaven sends them pride wherewith to hide 
The loss they know not of — 

To find — too late, alas ! — there is 
No substitute for love. 

Then here 's success to youth and maid 

Who hold in hopeful hands 
And weave together, unafraid, 

Life's old mysterious strands. 
" Love is enough " — that is the stuff 

Fortune is fashioned of. 
To face the fickle world, there 's naught 

To substitute for love. 



TO JUNE 255 



TO JUNE 

Month of the perfect love, 
Month of the perfect leaf, — 

The mellow-mourning dove 
Thine only note of grief, — 
Oh, let me hide within thy shade a sorrow past relief! 

Thou, unto whose employ 

All Nature's arts belong — 
Fragrance and warmth and joy: 
Admit me to thy throng. 
Thou canst not dull the pang, but oh ! tune every chord 
to song! 



256 A LOVER'S ANSWER- 



A LOVER'S ANSWER 

Thou seekest, "Where is heaven?" Oh, Love, 'tis 
where 

Thou shalt be, though thou be in hell. 

" And what is hell ? " Oh, darling, 't were to dwell 
In highest heaven and thou not there. 



THE GUEST 2$7 



THE GUEST 

I have a guest, but cannot tell 

If he were bid or sent, 
Yet welcome, as by desert well 

The Arab to the tent. 
How long will he consent to stay 
To give a reason for the day? 

And if he go, can I unlearn 

His songs of joy and pain? 
His torch, that was so quick to burn, 

How can I quench again — 
That torch that lights with fadeless flame 
One face, one memory, one namel 



258 TO ONE WHO COMPLAINED 



TO ONE WHO COMPLAINED OF A 
LOVER'S PERSISTENCE 

You hear but the moans that break 
On the rocks at your feet — but hark! 
Perchance through the dreary dark 

A cry from a drifting wreck I 



INTERPRETERS 259 



INTERPRETERS 

One conned my simple lines with cynic art, 

Then smiled, as though he found a friend in me, 

And read : " If Love alone possess your heart, 
Then can you never more unhappy be." 

Another, feeling still Love's bitter dart, 

Smiled through her joyful tears triumphantly, 

And read : " If Love alone possess your heart, 
Then can you nevermore unhappy be," 



26o THE TRYST 



THE TRYST 

The panting north wind staggers 

A-clutch with the sullen tide, 
And the blast with a hundred daggers 

Is piercing the rower's side. 
They say he was mad to venture, 

They moan on the icy shore; 
But pleading, or fear, or censure 

Shall carry him back no more. 

For what is the cold wave's seething, 

Or the rush of the white-speared storm, 
To the thought of the sweet South, breathing 

From lips that are pure and warm; 
Or the thrust of the angry billow 

To the rise of her tranquil breast 
That to-night shall be his pillow 

Where, welcome, he may rest? 



LOVE THE CONQUEROR CAME TO ME" 261 



"LOVE THE CONQUEROR CAME TO ME 



Love the Conqueror came to me,- 
He whom I did long deride, — 
Gave humility for pride, 
April voicing 
My rejoicing. 
I — who fancied I was free — 
Glad to be with garlands tied ! 



Love the Awakener came to me; 
Called my sleeping soul to strife, 
Offered gift of fuller life 
(Wish, the measure 
Of my pleasure) ; 
And the bud that knew no bee 
Burst, a rose with beauty rife. 



262 "LOVE THE CONQUEROR CAME TO ME 

m 
Love the Tester came to me; 
For the paean gave the dirge, 
For caresses gave the scourge 
(Ay, though Fortune 
Did importune), 
Till my breathing seemed to be 
Sorrow's tide at ebb and surge. 

IV 

Love the Ennobler came to me, 
With the cross as his device, 
Saying, " Shrink not from the price 
(Pain the burden, 
Peace the guerdon) ; 
Sorrow bravely borne shall be 
Doubly sweet as sacrifice." 

v 
Love the Revealer comes to me 
On this battled height, and shows 
Yonder river of repose: 
" Not by creeping, 
But by leaping, 
Learns the rill the harmony 
That within the river flows." 



THE STRONGER SUMMONS 26$ 



THE STRONGER SUMMONS* 

I 
How May doth call us with her sweetest voice, 

Fragrant with blossoms on this moonlit night ! 
" Take of my wine, and in new birth rejoice; 

Leave care and toil, the sordid city's plight. 
Oh, dying Man, come to the source of Life, 
And hush in Nature all the sounds of strife." 

H 

Wondrous the vision, and we fain would go 
But that a nobler pleasure calls us here. 

Charm, Nature, as thou wilt, thou canst not throw, 
A spell to win us like the smile and tear. ":.f 

In what Love, Friendship, Duty, Service can, 

We know God's greatest miracle is Man. 

* Written in honor of the distinguished physician Dr. Abra- 
ham Jacobi, and read at the banquet given to him in New York 
city, May 5, 1900, to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of his 
birth, and included with the Festschrift then presented to him 
by members of the medical profession. 



264 THE FLOWER OF FAME 



THE FLOWER OF FAME 

He sought it before the billow of spring on the meadow 

was seen, 
When only the flush of the willow was tracing the river 

with green; 
He scanned to the edge of the fraying snows that 

dappled the mountain-slope, 
And ever too late the March sun rose: for he searched 

the world with hope. 

I saw him at noon of the summer day, and that was the 

favorite hour 
To one who had hunted from March to May, and never 

had found the flower; 
For the light was full, as though the sun were aiding 

his eager quest, 
And there were no warning shadows to run o'er his 

path from east or west. 

And still in September's purple and gold he was hunting 

the grudging ground, 
But not with the steady eye of old or the springtime's 

joyous bound; 



THE FLOWER OF FAME 265 

If he stopped in his feverish roaming, 't was to question 

the darkling air; 
Too early came the gloaming: he was searching with 

despair. 

And while, for a chance of the rarest, he wanders in 

storm or heat, 
He is blind to the charm of the fairest; he is crushing 

beneath his feet 
The Flower of Every Valley, the Flower of All the Year, 
Deep in whose broken blossom the dew lies like a tear. 



266 THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 



THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 



Within, what gracious store 
Of pleasures throng : 

Rest, beauty, firelit lore, 
Love-breathing song. 

Why at the open door 
Wait you so long ? 



Oh, why delay to touch 
The splendid flower? 

Why tremble ere we clutch 
The perfect hour? 

Is it too near, too much, 
The certain dower? 



THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 267 

m 

Beneath the bride's attire 

Her heart stands still — 
Half-way from porch to choir — 

For joy, not ill 
(We shiver before fire 

As well as chill). 



IV 

Home-bound, beyond the bar 

I heard again, 
An exile from afar, 

The tide's refrain: 
What did the moment mar? 

Ah ! 't was not pain. 



Well may the victor shrink 

Aghast at Fame 
To hear, on Fortune's brink, 

His land's acclaim, 
That with its great doth link 

His own strange name. 



268 THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 

VI 

We raise the precious bowl — 

To sip and sigh: 
The starving takes but dole 

Lest he may die ; 
Must, then, the famished soul 

Its feast put by? 

vn 

What if our mortal fear 
Were but the dread 

Before great joy! How near 
Were the loved dead ! 

Then were the grave more dear 
Than bridal bed. 



REINCARNATION 269 



REINCARNATION 

" Another world ! Another life ! " we cry, 

And for new chances toward far regions reach, 

Yet squander teeming treasure as we sigh, 
While every day a new life waits for each. 



270 PREMONITIONS 



PREMONITIONS 

There 's a shadow on the grass 

That was never there before; 
And the ripples as they pass 

Whisper of an unseen oar; 
And the song we knew by rote 
Seems to falter in the throat, 
And a footfall, scarcely noted, lingers near the open 
door. 

Omens that were once but jest 
Now are messengers of fate; 
And the blessing held the best 
Cometh not or comes too late. 
Yet, whatever life may lack, 
Not a blown leaf beckons back, 
" Forward! " is the summons. " Forward! where the 
new horizons wait." 



IV 

MOMENTS OF ITALY, AND 
OTHER POEMS 



TO GRACE DENIO LITCHFIELD 



TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME 27 



/y 



TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME 

(EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN) 

[On his long-deferred and only trip to Italy Stedman en- 
tered the country from the north for what proved to be a 
very brief sojourn, for soon after reaching Venice he was 
suddenly obliged to return to America. It remained his 
cherished desire to see the Eternal City, and the Roman 
Committee of the Keats-Shelley Memorial long hoped that 
he might be present at the proposed dedication of the Keats 
House, contemplated for the 23d of February, 1908. He 
died five weeks before that day, when the lines which fol- 
low were written. As the active and devoted Chairman of 
the American Committee he took a leading part in this 
project. Probably his last words written for publication on 
a literary topic were in praise of the two poets, to which he 
added a transcription from "Ariel," his ode on Shelley.] 

You who were once bereft of Rome 
With but the Apennines between, 

And went no more beyond the foam, 

But loved your Italy at home 
As others loved her seen: 

You knew each old imperial shaft 
With sculpture laureled to the blue ; 

Where martyr bled and tyrant laughed; 

Where Horace his Falernian quaffed, 
And where the vintage grew. 



276 TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME 

The Forum's half-unopened book 

You would have pondered well and long ; 
And loved St. Peter's misty look, 
With vesper chantings in some nook 
Of far-receding song. 

Oft had you caught the silver gleams 
Of Roman fountains. To your art 
They add no music. Trevi teems 
With not more free or bounteous streams 
Than did your generous heart. 



I hoped that this Muse-hallowed day 

Might find your yearning dream come true 

That you might see the moonlight play 

On ilex and on palace gray 
As 't were alone for you; — 



That your white age might disappear 

Within the whiteness of the night, 
While the late strollers, lending ear 
To your young joy, would halt and cheer 
At such a happy wight ; — 



TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME 277 

That you, — whose toil was never done, — 
Physicianed by the Land of Rest, 

Might, like a beggar in the sun, 

Watch idly the green lizard run 
From out his stony nest;— 



That you, from that high parapet 

That crowns the graceful Spanish Stairs, 

(Whose cadence, as to music set, 

Moving like measured minuet, 

Would charm your new- world cares), 



Might see the shrine you helped to save ; 

And yonder blest of cypresses, 
That proud above your poets wave. 
Warder of all our song, you gave 

What loyalty to these ! 



The path to Adonais' bed, 

That pilgrims ever smoother wear, 
Who could than you more fitly tread ? — 
Or with more right from Ariel dead 

The dark acanthus bear? 



278 TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME 

Alas ! your footstep could not keep 

Your fond hope's rendezvous, brave soul ! 

Yet, if our last thoughts ere we sleep 

Be couriers across the deep 
To greet us at the goal, 

Who knows but now, aloof from ills, 
The heavenly vision that you see — 
The towers on the sapphire hills, 
The song, the golden light — fulfils 
Your dream of Italy ! 



THE SPANISH STAIRS 279 



THE SPANISH STAIRS 

[It will be recalled that the house in which Keats died 
adjoins the Spanish Stairs in Rome. It has been proposed 
to remove the fountain below them to make room for the 
tramway in the piazza.] 

Rome, symbol of all change, oh, change not here ! 
Thou, ever avid of beauty, who shall say 
Thou hast forsworn it in a vain display 
And blare of discord, as though eager ear 

Listening for nightingale heard chanticleer? 
Oh, leave these sunny stairs, that float and stray 
From fountain blithe and flowers' rich array 
To beckoning bells and chanting nuns anear. 

Of all the dead that loved them, hear that voice 
Whose sorrow and last silence once they knew, 
Whose spirit guards them with his flaming theme, 

The immortal joy of beauty. Oh, rejoice, 
And stay thy hand : that future ages, too, 
By them may mount to heaven, like Jacob in his 
dream. 



Piazza di Spagna, 

St. Agnes' Eve, 1903. 



280 THE NAME WRIT IN WATER 

THE NAME WRIT IN WATER 

(PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ROME) 

The Spirit of the Fountain speaks: 

Yonder 's the window my poet would sit in 
While my song murmured of happier days ; 

Mine is the water his name has been writ in, 
Sure and immortal my share in his praise. 

Gone are the pilgrims whose green wreaths here hung 
for him, — 
Gone from their fellows like bubbles from foam ; 
Long shall outlive them the songs have been sung for 
him; 
Mine is eternal — or Rome were not Rome. 

Far on the mountain my fountain was fed for him, 
Bringing soft sounds that his nature loved best : 

Sighing of pines that had fain made a bed for him ; 
Seafaring rills, on their musical quest ; 

Bells of the fairies at eve, that I rang for him; 

Nightingale's glee, he so well understood ; 
Chant of the dryads at dawn, that I sang for him ; 

Swish of the snake at the edge of the wood. 



THE NAME WRIT IN WATER 281 

Little he knew 'twixt his dreaming and sleeping, 
The while his sick fancy despaired of his fame, 

What glory I held in my loverly keeping : 
Listen ! my waters will whisper his name. 



282 SPRING AT THE VILLA CO NT I 



SPRING AT THE VILLA CONTI 

Of Time and Nature still the fairest daughter, 

Low-voiced Repose! Here thou dost ever dwell, 

While Fancy wills no more to wander on. 
With how few simples dost thou steep the sense, 
Holding in soft suspense, 

Like pauses in the tolling of a bell, 

The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 
Nothing is here but woods and water, 

Spaces, and stone, and a sculptor's wit 
Simply to fashion it 
Into one long line of many niches, 
Whose fountains are fed by the rushing riches 

That, bowl to bowl, from the woodland pool 

Fall in a rhythm clear and strong, 

Singing to Nature her eldest song, 

Prattling their paradox — restfully restless. 
O March, with never a moment zestless, 

Nor the sun too warm nor the shade too cool ! 
O May and the music of birds now nestless ! 

Come soon and brood o'er the woodland pool ! 



SPRING AT THE VILLA CONTI 283 

(For lover or nightingale who can wait? 
Whenever he cometh he cometh late.) 
The light plays over the ilex green, 
Turning to silver the somber sheen, 

And Spring in the heart of the day doth dwell 
As the thought of a loved one dwells with me, 

And only three cypresses to tell 
"This is not Heaven, but Italy." 

Frascati, March, 1903. 



284 COMO IN APRIL 



COMO IN APRIL 

The wind is Winter, though the sun be Spring : 

The icy rills have scarce begun to flow ; 
The birds unconfidently fly and sing. 

As on the land once fell the northern foe, 

The hostile mountains from the passes fling 
Their vandal blasts upon the lake below. 

Not yet the round clouds of the Maytime cling 

Above the world's blue wonder's curving show, 
And tempt to linger with their lingering. 

Yet doth each slope a vernal promise know: 

See, mounting yonder, white as angel's wing, 
A snow of bloom to meet the bloom of snow. 

Love, need we more than our imagining 

To make the whole year May? What though 
The wind be Winter if the heart be Spring? 



THE VINES THAT MISSED THE BEES 285 



THE VINES THAT MISSED THE BEES 

(TO COUNT COSIMO RUCELLAI OF FLORENCE WITH A 

COPY OF HIS ANCESTOR GIOVANNI RUCELLAl's 

POEM "THE BEES") 

Once, when I saw the tears upon your vines 

You told me they were "weeping" — but for what? 

I find their secret in your kinsman's lines : 
They missed the honeyed music he has caught. 

Florence, April, 1906. 



286 THE POET IN THE CHILDREN'S EYES 



THE POET IN THE CHILDREN'S EYES 

(TO COUNTESS EDITH RUCELLAI, DESCENDANT OF JOSEPH 

RODMAN DRAKE, — IN HER ALBUM, CONTAINING 

LINES BY BROWNING, LONGFELLOW, 

LOWELL, AND OTHERS) 

Thou of a poet's blood, and many a tie 
Of kin or friendship with the singing race : 

How shall I dare, without a throb or sigh, 

Near these lost bards beloved my name to place ! 

One wish I offer, though with halting fingers : 
That in thy brood, of eager eyes divine, 

The poet that within the mother lingers 
May find a voice worthy the deathless line. 

Florence, April, 1906. 



TO DREYFUS VINDICATED 287 



TO DREYFUS VINDICATED* 



Soldier of Justice, — fighting with her sword 
Since thine was broken 1 Who need now despair 
To lead a hope forlorn against the throng ! 

For what did David dare 
Before Goliath worthy this compare — 
Thou in the darkness fronting leagued wrong ? 
What true and fainting cause shall not be heir 
Of all thy courage — more than miser's hoard ! 
In times remote, when some preposterous 111 
Man has not yet imagined, shall be King, 

While comfortable Freedom nods, — 
And Three shall meet to slay the usurping thing, 
Thy name recalled shall clinch their potent will, 
And as they cry, " He won — what greater odds ! 

They shall become as gods. 



Oh, what a star is one man's steadfastness, 
To reckon from, to follow, and to bless ! 

* See also page 236. 



288 TO DREYFUS VINDICATED 

Thou that didst late belong 
To every land but France — the unribboned 

Knight 
To whom her honor and thine own were one: 
Now, on the morrow of thy faithful fight 

When once more shines the sun 

And all the weak are strong, — 
No less we call thee ours 
That thou art doubly hers, the while she showers 

On thine unhumbled head 
Her penitential laurels and her flowers, 
As might we on one risen from the dead : — 

France, generous at last, 
Impassioned nobly to retrieve her passion overpast. 

Ours, too, thy champions! Who shall dare to 

say 
The sordid time doth lack of chivalry, 
When men thus all renounce, all cast away, 
To walk with martyrs through a flaming sea! 
Picquart! — how jealously will Life patrol 
The paths of peril whither he is sent. 

Zola ! — too early gone ! 
Whose taking even Death might well repent, 
Though 't was to enrich that greater Pantheon 
Where dwell the spirits of the brave of soul. 



TO DREYFUS VINDICATED 289 



in 

Yet doth thy triumph find its better part, 
Soldier of Mercy, in thine own great heart, 
That, in the vision of thy loneliest time, 
Learned, like the poet, " All revenge is crime." 
But though thine enemies may never feel 
The gyves that with injustice mangled thee, 
Pierced shall their souls be by a sharper steel — 
The blade of conscience — faultless weaponry 1 

Though, free from Law's reprisal, 
They lie within no dank and sheathing cell 
Where horror doth approximate to hell ; — 
Though they may never, near the brink of death, 
Accuse with proud, pure hands the God of 
Light; — 

Yet is the day their night; 
Yet is the world their prison, and their breath 
But the slow poison of the world's despisal. 
Leave them — so deaf to pity — unto Him 
Who taught thee pity in thine exile caged and 

dim. 



290 TO DREYFUS VINDICATED 

ENVOI 

Oh, tremble, all oppressors, where ye be — 
Throne, senate, mansion, mart, or factory; 
One against many, many against few; 
Ye poor, once crushed, that crush your own anew; 
Ye vulgar rich, new-risen from the mud, 
Despoilers of the flower in the bud : 
For justice is the orbit of God's day, 
And He hath promised that He will repay. 



THE ABSENT GUEST 291 



THE ABSENT GUEST 

(read march 20, 1907, at the annual dinner of 
the macdowell association, pounded to 
promote edward macdowell 's plans 
for a sympathetic coopera- 
tion of the arts) 

Go, wreathe his chair with laurel, 
And brim his glass with wine, 

And let one silent place proclaim 
The presence we divine. 

To sorrow for so pure a soul, 

So warm a heart as he, 
Makes never discord at a feast 

Given to Harmony. 

The dream he dreamed by starlight 

Is not less fair by sun : 
That Beauty may to Beauty join 

Till all the arts be one; 



292 THE ABSENT GUEST 

That each who serves the Muses, 
And weaves the magic thrall 

With words, or sounds, or speechless earth, 
May brother be to all. 

On this wide hearth he lighted 

A new-inspiring flame, 
Whose torch to kindling torch for aye 

Shall whisper of his fame. 

Join hands for that Ideal 

He loved and worshiped most. . . . 

Our absent guest, I said? . . . Ah, no! 
He is our absent host. 



THE CZAR'S OPPORTUNITY 293 



THE CZAR'S OPPORTUNITY 

THE SUNDAY MASSACRE, ST. PETERSBURG, JANUARY 22 
1905 

He heard his loyal people cry 

Like children to a saint : 
" Help, Little Father, or we die ! 

We starve, we freeze, we faint. 
The noble hears not for his crimes, 

The soldier, for his drum, 
The Procurator, for hh chimes — 

To thee at last we come. 

" To-morrow, when the bells have ceased, 

Before thy palace door 
A throng shall stand, as at a feast, 

Thy mercy to implore. 
And that with favor it be crowned, 

The prayer we bring to thee 
Shall on the Holy Cross be bound 

As Christ on Calvary." 



294 THE CZAR'S OPPORTUNITY 

Then the good angel of the Czar 

Spake with a sibyl's voice : 
" Let no mischance this moment mar, 

'T is sent thee to rejoice. 
Go meet thy people as they trudge 

Toward thee their weary way, 
To find in thee a righteous judge; 

And go unarmed as they. 

" Enough, through centuries of wrong, 

Thy line's inverted fame, 
The Romanoff has been too long 

The synonym of shame. 
Then haste to meet the cross afar, 

Do thou what courage can, 
And thou shalt be the greater Czar 

If thou but show thee man." 

He rose, resolved; but — fortune dire! 

One glance his purpose crossed : 
An impulse from some recreant sire 

Triumphed, and he was lost. 
The flower is trampled in the sod; 

False dawn delays the day: 
And once again the Will of God 

Marches the bloody way. 



THE LOVER OF HIS KIND 295 



THE LOVER OF HIS KIND 

Wreaths for the Soldier, if it be 
His sword be sworn to Liberty! 
Wreaths for the Poet who shall bring 
New light to Dawn, new joy to Spring ! 
Wreaths for the Hero who shall brave 
The peril of the flame or wave ! 
But keep one wreath for him whose days 
Too happy for the need of praise — 
Glow with the love and hope that plan 
A richer heritage for Man. 

He keeps his faith amid the grime 
And scramble of our modern time. 
His eyes are sight to countless feet 
That else would stumble in the street. 
Riches the poor would throw away 
He saves to make their better day. 
Taught both by sorrow and by sin, 
His great heart's portals open in. 



296 THE LOVER OF HIS KIND 

And, though not reckoned with the great, 
His hidden labors prop the State. 

For ages History pondered long 
The flaunted records of the strong. 
To-day she craves the subtle power 
To know the soil that grows the flower. 
To-morrow she perchance may speak 
The judgments of the voiceless weak. 






TOGETHER 297 



TOGETHER 

All life is but one and man's nature not lower or 
higher 
If true to his finest he be, whether body or soul. 
Each some time seems loftier, bidding the other aspire; 
Lift both to the height of their best and make per- 
fect the whole ! 



298 SOMETHING IN BEAUTY 



SOMETHING IN BEAUTY BINDS US TO 
THE GOOD 

Helen 's of the goddess-height, 
Formed to lavish on the sight 
Lines to give the world delight; 
Rest and Motion there contend 
Which to her the more may lend, 
Grace and dignity to blend. 

Gentle as the turning tide 

Is her breathing, scarce espied 

Where the virgin gown doth hide; 

Yet increase of sympathy 

Makes her throbbing, like the sea, 

Fit your sorrow or your glee. 

For her quick responses reach 
Into regions beyond speech, 
Mating with the mood of each ; 



BINDS US TO THE GOOD 299 

Heaven having matched her form 
With a woman's heart as warm 
As first firelight after storm. 

Not less graciously was planned 
Her large, perfect, helpful hand 
With its hint of soft command ; 
Fairest at her face it shows 
When her lips caress a rose, 
While her laughing lids half close. 

White and noble is her brow 
With the pureness of a vow 
Such as I am breathing now. 
Ever so, if Beauty could 
Be by mortals understood, 
It would bind us to the good. 



300 ON A LADY'S CHATELAINE MIRROR 



ON A LADY'S CHATELAINE MIRROR 

(to m. l. u.) 

Were there a mirror for the soul 
To give report of joy or dole, 
How we should o'er thy shoulder peer 
To find the secret of thy cheer. 



THE SCAR 301 



THE SCAR 

But one the scar had ever seen. 

Some said 't was got in valiant fight 
With foe too strong; some hinted flight, 

And wondered where " the scratch " had been, 
And marveled he survived its might! 

Month upon month, and year on year 
Passed, and his dumb lips gave no sign. 
But men remarked, like some rare wine, 

The smile, that brought to joy new cheer, 
And gave to grief an anodyne. 

While he lay dead, there drew apart 

Two, whispering; then, their courage found, 
They tore aside the band that bound; 

A third, with woman's gentle art, 
Hid with her hair his open wound. 



302 COMPELLING LOVE 



COMPELLING LOVE 

I sing not Love prose-mated 
With Pride or Sense, soon sated, 
Where give and take are rated 

In terms of bargain-buyer; 
Nor Love that sells her dearly 
For so much shelter yearly, 
As Cupid's torch were merely 

To light the kitchen fire; 

Nor Love that lingers, longing, 
In reasoned absence, wronging 
The soul's desires, thronging 

As pleading angels bend; 
Nor Love that never misses 
The mate's estranged kisses, 
And is, of former blisses, 

Content to keep — a friend; 



COMPELLING LOVE 303 

Nor prudish Love repressive 
That, lest it seem aggressive, 
With modesty excessive 

Deems maiden more than wife; 
Nor Love that fain would fetter 
The spirit with the letter, 
As there were something better 

Than holy human life. 

But Love, of Fate elected, 
That, coming unexpected, 
Can never be rejected — 

The sea no shore can stop; 
That waits not to be bidden, 
And answers not when chidden, 
And can no more be hidden 

Than flame on mountain-top. 

Such Love need not beleaguer 
A garrison so meager 
With its commander eager 

To say the craven word, — 
Who prays not heaven to send her 
A champion to defend her, 
Rejoicing to surrender 

When Love's demand is heard. 



3 04 COMPELLING LOVE 

Give me the Love O'erflowing, 
The fond eye's fervent glowing, 
The tranced heart out-going 

To meet both soul and sense; 
The Love whose years are reckoned 
By day, by hour, by second 
When some new wonder beckoned 

To some new joy intense. 

No calculated passion 

Of artificial fashion, 

But nature's daily ration — 

The feast of Youth and Age; 
Defying Time's estranging 
Untiring and unchanging, 
Without a thought of ranging — 

The song without the cage. 



THE MARCHING-SONG 305 



THE MARCHING-SONG 

Lonely the forest to him who threads it without a 

companion; 
Lonely the sea when its lonely fog lifts upon sail-less 

horizon; 
Lonelier populous city to one without comrades or kindred; 
Lonelier still when the moonlight — in language invented 

by lovers — 
Speaks of the nights that are gone and the places it, only, 

remembers. 

Thus, longing for forest or sea, I sat, in the heat of the 

city, 
My only companion the friend to whom I was writing 

my envy, 
When out of the distance there floated a beautiful 

choral of voices. 
Nearer and nearer they came while I, from my balcony 

leaning, 
Drank with the thirst of the desert the gladdening 

draught of the music. 



306 THE MARCHING-SONG 

Twenty the count of the striplings who marched with a 

rhythmical footfall, 
Joyous the trebles, exultant the tenors, and solemn the 

basses, — 
They and their song of a harmony perfect and full and 

reciprocal, 
Music that moistened the eyes long after the singers 

departed. 



Who could they be — thus to add to the beautiful night 

a new beauty? 
Friends, of some serious purpose, united more strongly 

in singing. 
Surely not sons of the rich, for the rich are united in 

nothing. 
Riches divide, and scant is the friendship based only 

on plenty. 
These were no roysterers breaking the rhythm of night 

with their discord, 
Who find no diversion worth while that makes not 

unhappy their fellows; 
Rather some guild of the poor returning from study or 

pleasure, 
Stronger by toil or by rest, each with the strength of 

his fellows; 



THE MARCHING-SONG 307 

Buoyant with youth, glad with hope and in sympathy 

banded, 
Marching serenely as one, helpfully, shoulder to 

shoulder. 

Back to my letter I went and with shame I destroyed 

my repinings. 
I thought how the song would have fitted the eloquent 

vision of Whitman, — 
Pondered the spirit of comradeship shown in these 

marchers courageous. 

Lonely though sometime it seems, our wine-press of 

toil or of sorrow, 
Brothers, we move to one ultimate goal, in invisible 

phalanx, 
In columns as wide as the world and as long as the 

slow-growing ages. 
I know you are there by the grasp of your hands and 

the cheer of vour voices. 



308 RECOGNITION 



RECOGNITION 

" O friend of other days " — 

You start, at our first meeting, 
To hear the cordial greeting, 
And search the past for warrant of the phrase. 
" My soul," you say, " have I forgot 
Some memorable hour and spot 
When, with long-clasping hand 
And confident demand, 
Mine eye its tribute took 
In level, lingering look? 
Or, in some age of yore 
Trod we this path before? " 



But why look back for treasure? Many a star 
Was undiscovered once. Our choicest good 
Was erst an unseen angel; long she stood 
So near we knew not and esteemed it far, 
For what to her was veil to us was bar. 



RECOGNITION 309 

No, not quite yet that moment, rich but dumb, 

Of friendship's troth the sum. 

We tread the same path toward it: we but hear 

The inland tide to know the ocean near. 

'T is to the future, not the past, must be 

Your staunchest loyalty, 
O Friend of other days — to come ! 



310 A MESSAGE BACK TO YOUTH 



A MESSAGE BACK TO YOUTH 

They told me " Youth is all revolt, 

And age is all repose "; 
That Time would medicine my fault, 

As every graybeard knows; 

Him whom the misty Morn deceives 
Sage Noon from doubt would wean, 

As the sapling of the restless leaves 
Becomes an oak serene. 

They told me Love was strongest there, 

Unbridled by Content; 
Life's tame meridian years could ne'er 

Know passion so unpent. 

I heard their whispered counselings: 
" Be patient with his dreams, 

Time to the best ideal brings 
The verdict * It but seems.' " 



A MESSAGE BACK TO YOUTH 311 

But I have found not as they planned 

The scheme of good and ill. 
Though full in sight of Age I stand, 

I am a rebel still. 



For me and for my kind I feel 

The pathos of mistake, 
And covet knowledge for my zeal 

To help the world awake. 

I find in labyrinthine wrong 

But one — Love's silken — clew. 

The way from what we know, how long 
It lies, to what we do! 

Since there be wings the blue to cleave, 

Why be content to plod ? 
Were man less laggard, he might leave 

The patience unto God. 

Still the weird figures in the mist, 
That held my youth in awe, 

Defy the toil of analyst 
To range them into law. 



312 A MESSAGE BACK TO YOUTH 

And Love ? — What all the youthful fire 
(They said would die so soon), 

To wiser man's mature desire 
But dawn compared to noon ? 



And though within my happy sight 
My children's children play, 

I find no fading of the light 
That made my magic day. 

The clearer vision but discerns 
The needs that Youth foreknew: 

More wonderful the sun that turns 
To rainbow in the dew. 

The world's heart still in Music beats 
Against this heart of mine, 

That, more than ever, gladly greets 
Day's pageantry divine. 

Still unappeased the boy's desire, 

Still tireless is the quest; 
As to the summit leaps the fire, 

The better seeks the best. 



DAPHNE 313 



DAPHNE 

Yes, I grant you, she is pretty, with the pink of early 
morn, 

Pretty as the palest rose-leaf ever blushed above a 
thorn; 

And her backward look is saucy, and the quick toss 
of her head — 

Well, a boy likes chasing better if the colt be thorough- 
bred. 

And her mouth — 'twas made for smiling, winning 
you against your will 

With its Cupid's bow and dainty teeth, like young 
cadets a-drill, 

And the careless pagan laughter, such as by the 
river's brink 

Charmed Apollo in his Daphne as 'twere some de- 
licious drink. 



314 DAPHNE 

Yes, I own my heart does answer to the blitheness of 

her call. 
Still, there 's something that is wanting in our 

Daphne, after all. 
I, who hold no woman perfect sans a spice of the 

coquette, 
Find a curving eyelash lovelier that it sometimes 

should be wet. 



And they say the way is weary for the man that fol- 
lows whim 

Till the brilliance of the little lawless graces shall 
grow dim; 

And the girl's piquant surprises may be tedious in the 
wife, 

And the pin-pricks of the sapling toughen to the 
goads of life. 

Then, my boy, beware of Daphne. Learn a lesson 

from the rat: 
What is cunning in the kitten may be cruel in the cat. 
In the game of life the trump is, not the spade of 

crafty art, 
Power's club, or riches' diamond, but, believe me, 

boy, Love's heart. 



THE TRUE BIBLIOPHILE 315 



THE TRUE BIBLIOPHILE 

What is a bibliophile? Mere lover 

Of Whatman page and Mearne-made cover, 

Of crushed levant whereround doth hover 

A rare aroma? 
Whose bookcase, double-locked, affords 
Such ancient treasures bound in boards 
One has suspicions that it hoards 

An MS. Homer? 

What is a bibliophile? Mere seeker 
For finds to make all rivals meeker — 
Now down in Ann Street, now in Bleecker, 

To lose no chance 
That some neglected shop may show 
A fine unopened, pristine Poe, 
Flanked by an unfoxed Folio, 

With provenance? 



316 THE TRUE BIBLIOPHILE 

What is a bibliophile? Mere sigher 

For Trautz, Derome and Payne ? A buyer 

Of Incunabula by wire, 

OrtallBodoni? — 
Who, in his dreams, of sales doth rave, 
To others' bidding still a slave, 
And oft to many a bookish knave 

Who claims him crony? 

These things I do not hold as guile; 
But must one, as a bibliophile, 
Be captive on a treasure isle 

And live as lonely? 
'T were better not to hoard or spend, 
Better to borrow books — or lend — 
And know, like Field's o'er-pitied friend, 

Their insides only. 

Give me the man who 's always finding 
His heart imbedded in the binding, 
With threads of love about it winding — 

A book no longer; 
Who laughs with Lever, smiles with Lamb, 
Spouts " rare Ben Jonson," or with Sam 
Learns to despise the great world's sham, 

And so grows stronger. 



TEE TRUE BIBLIOPHILE 317 

Ah ! though you have all Rosinantes 
Were ever drawn for blithe Cervantes, 
And all the text of all the Dantes, 

T will little profit 
If you shall feel not in the Knight 
The pathos of his human plight, 
Or share not in the Stygian sight 

The terror of it. 



318 "PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 



"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 

(INSCRIBED TO MISS MARY GARDEN IN ADMIRATION 
OF HER BEAUTIFUL IMPERSONATION) 

What is there more of love to tell in rhyme 
Than in this piteous chronicle is told — 
This year-long epic of the heart, as old 
As ivied tower deep in dust and grime, 

And yet as new as the young leaves that climb 
To lovers' casements ? 'T is a tale of gold — 
Crown, ring, and tresses — slipping from the hold 
Of woodland innocence, the sport of Time. 

Read the dark legend told in terms of light: 
The mist-hung sea; the somber forest noon; 
Swift clouds of peril; twilight's closing gate 

To what were prison but for the amorous moon; 
Then weep, with tears that make us wise, her plight 
Who, dove-like, flutters in the net of fate. 



WATERS OF SONG 319 



WATERS OF SONG 

Time was when Avon's unrenowned stream, 
Save for its beauty, unregarded flowed; 
Once Arno even as other rivers glowed, 
For then it had not mirrored Dante's dream. 

How vague the gray Levantine sea did seem 
Ere Homer charted all the stormy road! 
The Psalmist who by Babylon abode 
Forever linked with grief the willow's gleam. 

Think you there are no other waters fit 
To be rechristened with a poet's name? 
Is Nature bankrupt ? — man's last beacon lit ? 

Believe it never! Unborn bards such fame 
On undiscovered rivers may bestow 
As shall to fable banish Nile and Po. 



V 

SAINT-GAUDENS: AN ODE 



TO FRANK HALL SCOTT 



SAINT-GAUDENS * 

BORN IN DUBLIN, IRELAND, MARCH 1, 1848 DIED IN 

CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AUGUST 3, 1907 



Uplands of Cornish! Ye, that yesterday- 
Were only beauteous, now are consecrate. 
Exalted are your humble slopes, to mate 
Proud Settignano and Fiesole, 
For her new-born is Italy's new birth of Art. 
In your beloved precincts of repose 
Now is the laurel lovelier than the rose. 

Henceforth there shall be seen 
An unaccustomed glory in the sheen 
Of yonder lingering river, overleant with green, 
Whose fountains hither happily shall start, 
Like eager Umbrian rills, that kiss and part, 

For that their course will run 

One to the Tiber, to the Arno one. 
O hills of Cornish! chalice of our spilled wine, 
Ye shall become a shrine, 

* Read, in part, November 20, 1909, in New York at the pre- 
sentation to Mrs. Saint-Gaudens of the gold medal of the Na- 
tional Institute of Arts and Letters awarded to the sculptor's 
work. 

3 2 5 



326 SAIN T-GA UDENS 

For now our Donatello is no more ! 
He who could pour 
His spirit into clay, has lost the clay he wore, 
And Death, again, at last, 
Has robbed the Future to enrich the Past. 
He, who so often stood 
At joyous worship in your Sacred Wood, 
He shall be missed 
As autumn meadows miss the lark, 
Where Summer and Song were wont to keep melodious 
tryst. 
His fellows of the triple guild shall hark 
For his least whisper in the starry dark. 
Here, in his memory, Youth shall dedicate 
Laborious years to that unfolding which is Fate. 
By Beauty's faintest gleams 
She shall be followed over glades and streams. 
And all that is shall be forgot 
For what is not; 
And every common path shall lead to dreams. 



Poet of Cornish; comrade of his days: 

When late we met, 
With his remembrance how thine eyes were wet! 
Thy faltering voice his praise 



SAIN T-GA UDENS 327 

More eloquently did rehearse 
Than on his festal day thy liquid verse. 
Since once to love is never to forget, 
Let us defer our plaint of private sorrow 
Till some less unethereal to-morrow. 
To-day is not the poet's shame 
But the dull world's; not yet 
Shall it be kindled at the living flame 
Whose treasured embers 
Ever the world remembers. 
Not so the sculptor — his immediate bays 
No hostile climate withers or delays. 
Let us forego the debt of friendly duty; 
A nation newly is bereft of beauty. 
Sing with me now his undeferred fame, — 

For Time impatient is to set 
This jewel in his country's coronet. 
When all men with new accent speak his name, 
And all are blended in a vast regret, 
There is no place for grief of thee or me : 
One reckons not the rivers in the sea. 
Sing not to-day the hearth despoiled of fire: 
Ours be the trumpet, not the lyre. 
Death makes the great 
The treasure and the sorrow of the State. 
Nor is it less bereaved 
By what is unachieved. 



328 SAINT-GAUDENS 

Oh, what a miracle is Fame! 
We carve some lately unfamiliar name 
Upon an outer wall, as challenge to the sun; 
And half its claim 
Is deathless work undone. 
Although the story of our art is brief, 
Thrice in the record, at a fadeless leaf, 
Falls an unfinished chapter; thrice the flower 
Closed ere the noonday glory drank its dew; 
Thrice have we lost of promise and of power — 
The torch extinguished at its brightest hour — 
His comrades all, for whom he twined the rue. 

But though they stand authentic and apart 
This is in our new land the first great grief of Art. 



in 

Yet, sound for him the trumpet, not the lyre — 
Him of the ardent, not the smouldering, fire: 
Whose boyhood knew full streets of martial song 

When the slow purpose of the throng 
Flamed to a new religion, and a soul. 
He knew the lure of flags; caught first the far 
drums' roll; 

Thrilled with the flash that runs 
Along the slanted guns; 



SAINT-GAUDENS ' 329 

Kept time to the determined feet 

That ominously beat 

Upon the city's floor 
The firm, mad rhythm of war. 

With envious enterprise 

He saw the serried eyes 
That, level to the hour's demand, 
Looked straight toward Duty's promised land. 
That to be boy was to be prisoned fast 
With the great world of battle sweeping past, 

While every hill and hollow 
Heard the heart-melting music, calling " Follow! " 
The day o'er-brimmed with longing and the night 
With beckoning dreams of many a dauntless fight, 
As though doomed heroes summoned us to see 

Thermopylae^ and Marathons. 
— Ah, had he known who was to be 
" Their laureate in bronze ! 

But who can read To-morrow in To-day ? 
Fame makes no bargain with us, will not say 
Do thus, and thou shalt gain, or thus and lose; 
Nay, will not let us for another choose 

The trodden and the lighted way. 
She burns the accepted pattern, breaks the mould, 

Prefers the novel to the old, 



330 SAINT-GAUDENS 

Revels in secrets and surprise; 
And while the wise 
Seek knowledge at the sages' gate 
The schoolboy by a truant path keeps rendezvous with 
Fate. 

IV 

This is the honey in the lion's jaws: 

That from the reverberant roar 

And wrack of savage war 
Art saves a sweet repose, by mystic laws 

Not by long labor learned 

But by keen love discerned; 

For this it bears the palm: 
To show the storms of life in terms of calm. 

Not what he knew but what he felt, 

Gave secret power to this Celt. 
Master of harmony, his sense could find 
A bond of likeness among things diverse, 
And could their forms in beauty so immerse 

That to the enchanted mind 
Ideal and real seem a single kind. 

Behold our gaunt Crusader, grimly brave, 
The swooping eagle in his face, 



SAINT-GAUDENS 331 

The very genius of command, 
And her not less, with her imperious hand, — 
The herald Victory holding equal pace. 

Not trulier in the blast 

Moves prow with mast; 
Line mates with flowing line, as wave with following 
wave — 

Rider and homely horse 

Intent upon their course 
As though she went not with them. Near or far, 
One is their import: she the dream, the star — 
And he the prose, the iron thrust — of War. 



So, on the traveled verge 
Of storied Boston's green acropolis 
That sculptured music, that immortal dirge 
That better than towering shaft 
Has fitly epitaphed 
The hated ranks men did not dare to hiss ! 
When Duty makes her clarion call to Ease 
Let her repair and point to this: 
Why seek another clime? 
Why seek another place? 
We have no Parthenon, but a nobler frieze,- 



332 SAIN T-GA UDENS 

Since sacrifice than worship nobler is. 
It sings — the anthem of a rescued race; 
It moves — the epic of a patriot time, 
And each heroic figure makes a martial rhyme. 
How like ten thousand treads that little band, 
Fit for the van of armies! What command 
Sits in that saddle ! What renouncing will ! 
What portent grave of firm-confronted ill ! 
And as a cloud doth hover over sea, 
Born from its waters and returning there, 
Fame, sprung from thoughts of mortals, swims the 

air 
And gives them back her memories, deathlessly. 



VI 

I wept by Lincoln's pall when children's tears, 

That saddest of the nation's years, 
Were reckoned in the census of her grief; 
And flooding every eye, 
Of low estate or high, 
The crystal sign of sorrow made men peers. 

The raindrop on the April leaf 
Was not more unashamed. Hand spoke to hand 
A universal language; and whene'er 
The hopeful met 't was but to mingle their despair. 



SAINT-GAUDENS 333 

Our yesterday's war-widowed land 
To-day was orphaned. Its victorious voice 
Lost memory of the power to rejoice. 
For he whom all had learned to love was prone. 
The weak had slain the mighty; by a whim 
The ordered edifice was overthrown 
And lay in futile ruin, mute and dim. 

O Death, thou sculptor without art, 

What didst thou to the Lincoln of our heart ? 

Where was the manly eye 

That conquered enmity? 

Where was the gentle smile 

So innocent of guile — 

The message of good-will 

To all men, whether good or ill? 

Where shall we trace 
Those treasured lines, half humor and half pain, 
That made him doubly brother to the race ? 
For these, O Death, we search thy mask in vain ! 

Yet shall the Future be not all bereft : 
Not without witness shall its eyes be left. 
The soul, again, is visible through Art, 
Servant of God and Man. The immortal part 



334 SAINT-GAUDENS 

Lives in the miracle of a kindred mind, 
That found itself in seeking for its kind. 
The humble by the humble is discerned; 
And he whose melancholy broke in sunny wit 
Could be no stranger unto him who turned 
From sad to gay, as though in jest he learned 
Some mystery of sorrow. It was writ : 
The hand that shapes us Lincoln must be strong 
As his that righted our bequeathed wrong; 
The heart that shows us Lincoln must be brave, 
An equal comrade unto king or slave; 
The mind that gives us Lincoln must be clear 

As that of seer 
To fathom deeps of faith abiding under tides of 

fear. 
What wonder Fame, impatient, will not wait 
To call her sculptor great 
Who keeps for us in bronze the soul that saved the 

State! 



vn 

Most fair his dreams and visions when he dwelt 
His spirit's comrade. Meager was his speech 
Of things celestial, save in line and mould; 
But sudden cloud-rift may reveal a star / 



SA IN T-GA UDENS 335 

As surely as the unimpeded sky. 
The deer has its deep forest of retreat: 
Shall the shy spirit have none? Be, then, 
The covert unprofaned wherein withdrew 
The soul that 'neath his pensive ardor lay? 
Find the last frontier — Man is still unknown 
ground. 

Things true and beautiful made a heaven for him. 

Childhood, the sunrise of the spirit world, 

Yielded its limpid secrets to his eye. 

He was in Friendship what he was in Art — 

Wax to receive and metal to endure. 

Looking upon his warriors facing death, 

Heroes seem human, such as all might be 

Yet not without the consecrating will! 

Age is serener by his honoring; 

And when he sought the temple's inmost fane 

The angels of his Adoration lent 

Old hopes new glory, and his reverent hand 

Wrought like Beato at the face of Christ. 

But what is this that, neither Hope nor Doom, 
Waits with eternal patience at a tomb? 
A brooding spirit without name or date, 



336 SAINT-GAUDENS 

Or race, or nation, or belief; 

Beyond the reach of joy or grief, 

Above the plane of wrong or right; 
A riddle only to the sorrowless; the mate 
Of all the elements in calm — still winter night, 
Sea after tempest, time-scarred mountain height; 

Passive as Buddha, single as the Sphinx, — 
Yet neither that sweet god that seems to smile 

On mortal good and guile, 
Nor wide-eyed monster that into Egypt sinks 

And Beast and Nature links; 
But something human, with an inward sense 

Profound, but nevermore intense; 
And though it doth not stoop to teach, 

It will with each 
Attuned to beauty hold a muted speech; 
In its Madonna-lidded meditation 
Not more a mystery than a revelation; 
Listen! It doth to Man the Universe relate. 
O Sentinel before the Future's Gate! 
If thou be Fate, art thou not still our Fate? 

For those who fain would live, but must breathe on 

Prisoners of this prosaic age — 
Ah, who for them shall read that page 
Since winged Shelley and wise Emerson are gone? 



SAIN T-GAV DENS 337 

vin 

How shall we honor him and in his place 
His comrades of the Old and Happy Race 
Whose Art is refuge Sorrow comes not nigh, 
Though Art be twin to Sorrow ? They reply 
From all the centuries they outsoar, 
From every shore 
Of that three-continented sea 
To which the streams of our antiquity 
Fell swift and joyously: 
" How, but to live with Beauty? " 

Across our Western world without surcease 
How many a column sounds the name of Greece! 
The sun, loth-lingering on the crest of Rome, 
Finds here how many an imitative dome! 
O classic quarries of our modern thought, 
What blasphemies in stone from you are wrought! 
For though to Law, Religion, or the State, 
These stones to Beauty first are dedicate, 
Yet to what purpose, if we but revere 
The temple, not the goddess ? — if whene'er 
The magic of her deep obsession seem 
To master any soul, we call it dream? 
Come, let us live with Beauty! 



338 SAINT-GAUDENS 

Her name is ever on our lips; but who 
Holds Beauty as the fairest bride to woo? 
The gods oft wedded mortals: now alone 
May man the Chief Immortal make his own. 
To Time each day adds increment of age 
But Beauty ne'er grows old. There is no gauge 
To count the glories of the counted hours. 
Flowers die, but not the ecstasy of flowers. 

Come, let us live with Beauty! 
What infinite treasure hers ! and what small need 
Of our cramped natures, whose misguided greed, 
Hound-like, pursues false trails of Luxury 
Or sodden Comfort! Who shall call us free — 
Content if but some casual wafture come 
From fields Elysian, where the valleys bloom 
With life delectable? Such happy air 
Should be the light we live in; unaware 
It should be breathed, till man retrieves the joy 
Philosophy has wrested from the boy. 

Come, let us live with Beauty! 

Who shall put limit to her sovereignty? 

Who shall her loveliness define? 
Think you the Graces only three? — 

The Muses only nine? 
Beyond our star-sown deep of space 



SAINT-GAUDENS 339 

Where, as for solace, huddles world with world 
(A human instinct in the primal wrack), 
Mayhap there is a dark and desert place 

Of deeper awe 
With but one outer star, there hurled 
By cataclysm and there held in leash by law: 
If lonely be that star, 't is not for Beauty's lack. 
She was ere there was any need of Truth, 
She was ere there was any stir of Love; 
And when Man came, and made her world uncouth 
With sin, and cities, and the gash of hills 
And forests, and a thousand brutish ills, — 

Moved by eternal ruth 
She hid her wounds and gave him, from above, 
The magic all his happiness is fashioned of. 



IX 

Knights of the five arts that our sculptor prized : 
How shall ye honor him and, in his place, 
Those others of the Old and Happy Race 
Who lived for beauty, and the golden lure despised? 

Painter of music, Architect of song, 
Sculptor in color, Poet in clay and bronze, 



340 SAINT-GAUDENS 

And thou whose unsubstantial fancy builds 

Abiding symphonies from stone and space! 

Mount ye to large horizons: ever be 

As avid of other beauty as your own. 

As nations greater are than all their states, 

More than the sum of all the arts is Art. 

High are their clear commands, but Art herself 

Makes holier summons. Ever open stand 

The doors of her free temple. At her shrine 

In service of the world, whose hurt she heals, 

Ye, too, physicians of the mind and heart — 

Shall ye not take the Hippocratic oath? 

Have ye not heard the voices of the night 

Call you from kindred, comfort, sloth and praise, 

To lead into the light the willing feet 

That grope for order, harmony and joy? — 

To reach full hands of bounty unto those 

Who starve for beauty in our glut of gold ? 

How shall we honor him whom we revere — 
Lover of all the arts and of his land? 
How, but to cherish Beauty's every flower? — 
How, but to live with Beauty, and so be 
Apostles of Rejoicing to mankind? 



VI 
LATER POEMS OF OCCASION 



A MEMORY OF BRITTANY 



Know you drowsy Pont Aven, 
Once the shaggy painter's den, 
Still beloved of painter sleek; 
Where a morning is a week, 
Where the clear stream's litany — 
Older than old Brittany — 
Murmurs droningly between 
Two half-towns of gray and green 
Snugly tucked among the hills; 
Where a dozen lazy mills 
Slowly turn, and grudgingly 
Creeps the river to the sea? 
(In wakeful nights I '11 sleep again 
By remembering Pont Aven.) 



343 



344 A MEMORY OF BRITTANY 



Ah, ere you begin to scoff 

See the Pont Avennaise' coiffe, 

Snow-white over pink or blue, 

Gaily set upon her crown, 

As though she set her cap for you; 

While coquettish ends fall down 

To the wide, ribbed linen, set 

Round her round neck brown and strong 

Half collar and half epaulette — 

Making Hogarth's line along 

Either shoulder. (Queens, go hide 

Your envy of the Breton bride.) 

Breton gallants need no lure 

To the beechen Bois d'Amour 

Where she walks so light and free, — 

Bringing to my memory 

Her who made, when all had gone, 

A processional of one. 

(Heart, when thou art saddest, then 

Think of her and Pont Aven. ) 



A MEMORY OF BRITTANY 345 



in 



But there 's something more to say 

Of our Bretonne, comely, gay: 

Ready to the calls of life, 

Joyous mother, faithful wife; 

Knowing nothing of the pity 

Lavished on her by the city — 

Nothing of the " Where? " and " Whence? " 

That make our life of outward sense 

An interchange of discontents. 

Love of country, love of soil, 

Face of patience, hand of toil, 

Smile of kindness, humble faith, 

Good for life and good for death. 

Fail the harvest, land or sea, 

Ne'er shall fail her industry. 

O'er her needle she will bend 

As her comrade and her friend. 

(Oh, if friends prove false, shall I 

Unto fate or Heaven cry ? 

No, I '11 courage find again 

By remembering Pont Aven.) 



346 PRETTY KITTY PICKERING 



PRETTY KITTY PICKERING 

What a curious world is this — 
Things we crave and things we miss! 
All the men are dickering, 
Half the women bickering, 
Moth-wings caught within the wax keep the candles 
flickering. 
Commerce and society 
Bring the same satiety. 
Love alone seems worth the while! . . . 
Yet upon how few may smile 

Pretty Kitty Pickering. 

What a curious world is this — 
Living, dying, for a kiss! 

Boys at lovers snickering, 

Jilted men a-liquoring, 
Every maid upon her hand longing for a thicker ring, — 

Finding in distraction 

Never satisfaction. 
Yet to lose love were worth while 
Had you known her winsome smile — 
Pretty Kitty Pickering. 



TO A MAPLE LEAF IN AUTUMN 347 

TO A MAPLE LEAF IN AUTUMN 

("We all do fade as a leaf") 

How like to Man art thou ! 

Canst thou thy change foresee — 
What leaf upon the bough, 

What bough upon the tree? 

It was but yestere'en 

Thou wert a loyal part 
Of Summer's solid green 

That stirred the grateful heart. 

But .Night upon thee blew 

With pale and frosty breath, 
And left thy natural hue 

Aflame in glorious death. 

Or was there from thy birth 

An ichor in thy blood, 
Transmuting the dull earth 

To Autumn's golden flood ? 



348 TO A MAPLE LEAF IN AUTUMN 

Thy going is not grief: 

Thy splendor shall but make 

Soil for another leaf 

That follows in thy wake. 

I in my Autumn hour 
Do envy thee in thine: 

Thy joy-diffusing power, 
The year's consummate wine. 

The light of yonder tree 

My keenest hurt doth salve; 

Better the gold we see 
Than all the gold we have. 

When my green strength be stayed, 
And frost shall summon me, 

If like a leaf I fade, 
Oh, let me fade like thee ! 



THE MESSAGE OF FULTON 349 



THE MESSAGE OF FULTON 
(acrostic read at the launching or THE NEW 

"CLERMONT," JULY 10, 1909) 

River of Plenty and the Peace of God — 
Of all His streams the chosen since His feet 

By thy round cliffs our new-world beauty trod — 
(Eldest of all our soil His face to greet:) 

Rejoice anew, O River of the Heart, 
To have in human glory such a part! 

From out the heights of Fame's diviner air 
Unto his kind this message and this call : 

Labor is Happiness and Hope and Prayer; 
There is no Progress but the good of all; 

Of every bondage Love is the release, 

Nor less with Time God's Plenty and His Peace. 



350 THE CALL TO THE COLORS 



THE CALL TO THE COLORS 



On the blood-watered soil of the Balkans 

A Bulgar lies clenched with a Turk, 
And the task of the cannon and rifle 

Will be finished by fist and by dirk. 
And the last word of hate — ere the rattle 

Of death bids their enmity cease — 
Does it call to the banners of battle 

Or call to the colors of Peace? 



In the purlieus of sin-befogged cities, 

Slow food of neglect and of pest, 
How many a mother lies dying, 

With to-morrow's pale scourge at her breast! 
And the bread-cry that serves for the prattle 

Of orphans — (oh, when shall it cease?) — 
Does it call to the banners of battle, 

Or call to the colors of Peace? 



THE CALL TO THE COLORS 351 

in 

I hear from my window this morning 

The shout of a soldiering boy; 
And a note in his proud pleasure wounds me 

With the grief that is presaged by joy. 
I hear not the drum's noisy rattle 

For the groan of one hero's release : 
Does it call to the banners of battle, 

Or call to the colors of Peace? 



IV 



O ye of the God-given voices, 

My poets, of whom I am proud, 
Who trumpet the true and the real 

When illusions are dazzling the crowd: 
Go, turn men from wolves and from cattle, 

Till Love be the one Golden Fleece. 
Oh, call us no more unto battle, 

But call to the colors of Peace! 



352 TO NEW YORK, AWAKENING 



TO NEW YORK, AWAKENING 

(read at the aldine club dinner to 
district-attorney charles s. whitman, 

NOVEMBER 22, 1912) 

O city of a thousand towers — 
And every tower a city! Seen from far, 
When homesick travelers tread the lagging ship, 
And find their thought enstatued in high bronze, 
How beautiful thou art, how strong, how dear! 
Half-veiled by April's morning mist, thou art 
A dream of Orient fancy, mirrored white 
On hospitable waters. From thy roofs, 
Like bannered army, flies the cloudy breath 
Of onward-pressing Commerce. In the hush 
Of brown November evenings, thou dost flower, 
Before the sky, in constellated light. 
New power has brought thee beauty new and rare. 
Sated with Europe, our still hungry eyes 
Covet our own. And as we look with pride 
On rock-set walls we say: So deep, so high 
Be Freedom's structure, buttressed by the law. 



TO NEW YORK, AWAKENING 353 

Here shall the Old World's poor, the Old World's 

waif, 
Retreating from their fate, forever find 
In thee the refuge of an open door — 
A fortress, such as fearful races built 
In the dim ages on securest hills. 

Oh, shall this vision be but naught? — this torch 
Extinguished ? — this world-hope be quenched ? 
Is this piled marble meant for Manhood's tomb? 
Is there no Soul within these iron ribs? 
Is there no music but the clink of coin? 
Is blood on every lintel? Do all doors 
Fall open only to a golden key? 
Shalt thou go down with Babylon and Tyre 
To fellow and grovel and batten with the beast? 
No! rise from sleep the giant that thou art, 
And break the bonds of long, complacent years. 
Think on the Past: its heroes died for thee; 
Think on the Future, lest it spurn thy clay. 
Follow the vision, listen to the voice 
Beckoning from heights trod only by the brave: 
" Man is as mighty as his noblest dream." 



354 TO ONE WHO DESPAIRED 



TO ONE WHO DESPAIRED OF THE 
REPUBLIC 

Paint black with peril what the Time portends; 
Breathe, if thou wilt, but stifling hopelessness; 
Brood on Man's swift decline from small to less — 
The beast that wallows or the beast that rends : 

Yet shall the Good prevail, 

We shall not fail! 



Blush for our country's dignity and fame, 
Forgot by those who rob us of our pride; 
Deplore the sleepers at the altar's side 
While madmen light their torch at Freedom's flame: 

Yet shall the Good prevail, 

We shall not fail! 



Yea, shudder at the temple strewn with coin; 
Law leaning on the broken sword of Force; 
And streams of weakness, come from many a source, 
In one wild flood of turbulence to join. 
Yet shall the Good prevail, 

Wp shuV. nnt fail! 



OF THE REPUBLIC 355 

Hast thou forgotten Heaven's patient plan? 
From many a blacker chaos have we come. 
Nature, a million heroes in her womb, 
Doth ever answer to the need of Man. 

So shall the Best prevail, 

And we not fail! 



356 THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 

THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 

(1863-1913) 



What if, that day, when on those tawny slopes, 

Made as by Mars for battle, but till then 

Still happily unhistoric, steeped in peace, 

Two foes, of age-long enmity, drew near — 

(Foes of torn forest and of trampled field, 

Not in the smart apparel of parade 

But long bedraggled with the toil of war, 

Will matched with will, courage to courage set, 

In tremulous expectancy of fate, 

Each with the hopes of millions in reserve;) — 

What if, while strong men nearer to their hearts 

Pressed their worn amulets: a wisp of hair; 

A woman's tear-stained letters; some small toy; 

The penciled tracing of a baby's hand; 

Likeness of child by father never seen, 

To whom that father was to be a myth 

Told by a lonely fireside through the years; — 



THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 357 

What if, at that weak moment of the brave, 
Before the sign of serried death was given, 
The Angel of the Future, in a white dream 
Of morning mist that blotted out the scene, 
Had swept in solemn beauty down the lines, 
Trailing a scroll of visioned prophecy, 
Till all had seen that field with second sight, 
And all had heard her words: 



" O warriors, stay! 
Unshotted be the cannon, sheathed the sword. 
Look on this picture, half a century hence, 
When ye, the tottering remnants who shall live 
To mourn the comrades who to-day shall die, 
Shall be again the brothers ye are now 
But seem not now to be. Look close ! 
Who are those old who mimic the assault 
Ye face to-day, crossing this very ground 
To meet not Death but Love? See, clasped in peace, 
Not clenched, your hands. Those heads of gray are 

yours. 
Time has outwept the colors of your flags, 
The strife forgiven, all the hate forgot. 
Sires of the not-yet-orphaned, will ye die ? " 



358 THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 

With such a vision slowly fading back 
From dream to dread, from dread to dream again, 
Could one have given the awful word of death, 
Or human hearts obeyed it? 

Yes, ah yes! 
In all great enterprises of the soul 
The immediate duty is the strongest lure. 
Not lightly did these follow the red trail, 
Not for adventure, nor for murderous sport, 
Nor glory, oft more sordid than grosser gain; 
But for the stark necessity of Man 
To heed his conscience' trumpet, lest he die 
And live on, dead! So, that the God within, 
Who haunts our coward days, might be appeased, 
With war's momentum in their heated veins, 
And with a Hebrew prophet's certainty, 
Each called on Heaven for justice, and rushed oni 



We say they fought each for the Right he saw. 
There is but one good greater than the Right — 
The imperishable Love of Right. That stays, 
The needle of our destiny, howe'er 



THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 359 

Its sentient tremblings momently may swerve. 
God of the storm, the fog, the sinking sea, 
Be praised for that deliverance! 

And yet — 
What if that strife, which all men said must be, 
Solvent of error, touchstone of respect, 
New bond of strength, need never to have been? 

We doubt, but what shall ermined History say? 
Somewhere in every devastating storm 
Of hungry flame that sweeps the night with fear 
Once lurked a primal spark not hard to quench; 
Perchance it smouldered long in soft neglect 
Till came a breeze, gentle as infant's breath, 
And piled on peril ruin and dismay — 
Ashes for beauty, as though patient years 
Had been withdrawn from Time, to be consumed. 
Of our dire conflagration who shall name 
The careless passer, or the sleeping guard, 
Or those who left the danger to their sons, 
Trusting the futile trench of compromise? 
Ah, name them boldly: the revered, the great, 
Firstlings of fame in every patriot's thought, 
The sculptured saints about the nation's fane, 
Their faults forgotten, in a people's pride. 



360 THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 

Men of that elder day, who gave us life, 
Honor for what you did, but not, alas! 
For what you left undone. For, when you built 
The nation's temple, hallowing every stone 
With sacrifice, you knew a serpent dwelt 
'Neath its foundations, yet you took your ease 
And left the poison of its brood to spread. 
On you, on you the blood of Gettysburg! 



m 



For whom these fables ? Are they not for us ? 
Are there not other serpents that demand 
The firm Herculean grasp? And other fires 
Mad with destructive spirit half subdued? 
Must Wisdom's torch consume a hundred hills 
That it may give us light to see our path 
Into peace-haunted valleys? 

Land of ours! 
Not less they love thee who must chide the faults 
Of those that serve thee. Be thou wise as strong — 
Justice to-day thy fortress of to-morrow; 
Better than battleships thine own Good Will; 
The bond of all thy children Equal Laws, 
Their pride thine Honor. Not unto thyself 



THE VISION OF GETTYSBURG 361 

Alone thou livest but to Space and Time! 
Lead thou thy leaders, lead they not aright, 
That, seeing clearly where our fathers failed, 
We leave no legacy of wanton strife 
As bones of prey to tempt the beast in Man, 
Lest, surfeited with carnage, sadder days 
Shall scorn our ashes, and impute to us 
The squandered blood of Gettysburgs to come. 



VII 
POEMS OF WAR AND PEACE 



THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 

TO THE IDEAL 

IN PATRIOTISM, ART, AND 

THE AFFECTIONS 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 



Servant of Man, well done ! 

Thy war of peace is won. 
The dream of continents five and centuries four 

Is dream no more. 

Once, on a waiting "peak in Darien," 

Obscure till then, 
But made immortal by a single line 

Of verse divine, 
Bold Balboa, following the lure 
Of fell Adventure's backward-glancing eyes, 
Found the new wonder that he sought. 
What did he not endure 
That still another watery realm 
He thus might add as kingdom to the Spanish helm ! 
Oh, joy supreme of half-divined surprise !— 
When, foremost climber, to his heart he caught 
The virgin sight of that uplifted sea, 

As new, as free, 
As though it had but just begun to be. 
Then, as he knelt, a second dream there came : 

The "wild surmise" 
His silent followers felt, but could not frame. 
For who could see so near those oceans flow 
But wish them mated — nay, but see them so? 

367 



368 GOETHALS OF PANAMA 

Did he not dream that, far beneath, some day, 
The hungry waters would devour a way 

To slip his caravels and shallops through 

From Cadiz to the riches of Peru? 
How could he guess that it would be mankind, 

Not Nature, that would find 
In that Herculean toil a labor to its mind ; 

And do with zest, ere infant grew to man, 

What only geologic ages can ; 
That what in him was vague, prophetic fancy 

Thy modern necromancy — 
Thy will, thy wisdom, and the art 
Of thy unconquerable heart, 

With Love and Duty pure, — 
Would make forever real and secure ; 
That Bounteous Fortune on that distant height, 

Where Occident with Orient meets, 
Her faith anew to all the world would plight, 
Beckoning with either hand to myriad-masted fleets? 
There let her statue crown a crowning tower 
Like to the topmost flower 

Upon a tropic tree, 

For every ship of every land to see. 
There some shall speak of Balboa, some of Keats 
(For one must find and one must celebrate); 
Others shall ponder long the fame and feats 
Of him who forced the bars of that reluctant gate — 
Contending whether he was great ; 

But all in perpetuity 
Shall bless the names of Gorgas and of thee ! 

Servant of Man, well done ! 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 369 



Since that first dream how long, how weary-long 
Crept the slow, lonely centuries, with no heed 

Of the premonitory need 
Of that forgotten and neglected land — 
Years like to years as waves upon that sleepy strand. 

Now, through thy sympathetic strife, 

The dozing Tropic is no more ; 

The world is at its door. 
At last it is adjoined to Life, 

To Freedom, and the brood 

Of Human Brotherhood. 
This is the meed 

Of richer triumph in thy deed, — 
The nation's pride that soon shall be a pride without 
alloy: 
That far beyond the Zone — 

Ours only for the world to own, 
Since that belongs to all that all alike enjoy — 

By bond assured, not word of mouth, 
We shall draw closer to the chivalrous South, 
Reaching our hands in friendship, not in greed. 
This is the leaping gladness in our song : 

That, for the human throng 
Who still, in every land, are slaves to ancient wrong, 
Half realized, half understood, 

Each sun may rise to greet a greater good. 
There is a destiny in every need of man, 

Though long, oh, weary-long 



370 GOETHALS OF PANAMA 

It wait in patience for the strong. 
Who grasp it not may honor him who can : 
Servant of Man, well done ! 



in 



Soldier of Peace, all hail ! 

No longer by the Desperate Cape 

Need the fagged mariner, within the maw 

Of noonday darkness and the windy shape 

Of winter gale, 
Reef with his frozen hands the solid sail, 
Praying, or cursing, as he thinks en pleached 
Panama. 
More hopefully shall Commerce now let slip 
Her homing pigeons, knowing every ship 
Hath chance of fairer sky 
Whether its course shall lie 
From Oregon's dark forests to the cheer 
Of proud Manhattan, bright and clear; 
From London's sooty docks to many an isle of fear 
That long has scarred the Western sea, but now 

shall quicklier rise 
Through Love and Law an earthly Paradise. 
No longer shall the bark inimitably roam 
That follows half the globe from Java or Japan; 
And they for lagging craft who gaze, 

As only lovers can, 
Shall count with blessing all the dwindling days 
That bring the wandering heart the sooner home. 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 37 1 

Now shall be saved not one mere month, but June ! 

Not three, but Love's long winter of delight ! 
Beauty of mountain, meadow slope and dune, 
As grateful to the welcome traveler's sight 
As the recaptured glory of a tune. 

Now for a while shall he remain content, 
As Life were meant 
For fireside voyage or the Muses' flight — 

High with Beethoven, or with Shakespeare far ; 
As if the lore of Fez or Zanzibar 
Were that some curly-head 
A little longer may delay the hour of bed, 
Devouring tales in wonder, to be dreamed in 
dread. 



IV 



Since the world's turbulent prime 
One war has never ceased — the war with Time : 
Our one right war of conquest, yielding spoil 
Of years, of hours, of minutes. Why this toil 

To be companion to the cloud, 

To whisper with the Antipodes, 

And, where no blade had ever plowed, 

To carve a path for argosies ? 

Why should we win, at equal cost 
Of take and give, 
Of gained and lost, 

Leisure for leisure, but more worthily to live? 



372 GOETHALS OF PANAMA 

Why agonize and struggle for repose, 
Remote, uncertain, and unseen, — 
If we impose 

On every bud the fury to be rose ; 

Spy on the seed to witness if it grows ; 

Despoil the silver dawn of its serene ; 

Startle the quiet dusk; like Phaeton 

Lashing the hours that draw the lagging sun? 

Were it worth while the precious years to save 

That we may madly gallop to the grave? 

Oh, time, time, time! — boon that we daily crave 

And waste in craving, losing as we save. 

Misers of all beside, our spendthrift strife 
Flings to each passing wind time that alone is life. 

Now have we need of days for nobler use 
Than savage barter, or patrician food, 
Or ease that only childish joys amuse, 
Or lawless pleasure mixed with manners rude. 
For while we ponder progress, half the world 
Has turned volcano, and aside has hurled 
All that long ages built upon its heights. 
Not time but life is squandered; and the half 
Of all the wheat is winnowed with the chaff. 
From trusted harbors the familiar lights 
By which we steered to safety have gone out 
And left our laden hopes in drifting doubt. 
Death, that was once God's servant, now is 

Man's 
And at his bidding speeds his monstrous 

plans. 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 373 

marvel never sung to any lyre ! 

certainty incredible and dire ! 
That one with anger thus could set his age on fire ! 
Of those who with cathedral-patience sought 
Our liberty to buttress and uplift, 

Who could have thought 
The downward plunge to chaos was so swift? 

Is life a false gem in our treasure store 
Once richly prized, now richly prized no more, 
And souls but sands beneath the waves of war? 
Come, country of my heart, lest thy pure 

pledge 
Of hope to the unborn be sodden sacrilege, 
Cry, though the cannon echoes, ' ' Peace, 

peace, peace !" 
Summon thy hosts that kill not but increase : 
Firm Justice, calm of Wisdom, fear of 

Wrong ; 
Courage of Science, constancy of Law; 
The poise of Knowledge and the glow of 

Song; 
Religion's solace, Doubt's still reverent awe; 
Beauty, the smile of God, Music, His voice. 
Oh, may these hold us sane and true, 
Lift us from tears and teach us to rejoice, 

Throw wide our prison doors 

Self -built of jealousy and fear; 
That ruined empires may through us renew 
The long, slow march toward that millennial 

year 



374 GOETHALS OF PANAMA 

When men shall be of universal love the 
willing servitors. 



O Soldier of our Peace, 
If in this conflict thy great work shall be 
Not thoroughfare of Honor and Amity, 
But route of Conquest, avenue of Hate, 
Way of Cupidity and road to Wrong, 
Better those hills had never heard the din 

Of steam and rivet, and the strong 
And jubilant song 
Of thy triumphant army, with one purpose kin. 
Before it be too late 

Adjourn the exultation of the State : 
Let it await 

An Age of Reason's more propitious date. 

Borrow a lustrum to undo the toil, 
Unhinge each mighty gate 

And let it rust supine on desecrated soil. 

Turn the robbed waters backward to the sea, 

If in their magic mirror there shall be 

No worthier vision of futurity. 

The path to wonders, the alluring track, 

Unto the jungle mournfully give back, 

And let the lazy Isthmus creep 

Again in misty silence to its sleep, 
Until some sullen earthquake, like a god 
Offended, where man's impious foot has trod, 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 3/5 

Unwilling to be warder of his bones, 
Indignantly regurgitates the cyclopean stones. 



VI 



Soldier of Peaceful War ! 
Forgive us if our doubt shall mar 
Thy victory, that has neither blot nor scar : 
*T is for the moment, when the Muse's gaze 
Wanders from thee. Our country is so dear 
Her lovers may indulge a lover's fear. 
Forgive us, too, a final word of praise : 
That in these troublous days 
Thy hand has written for the world to learn 
A symphony of Labor, where we may discern 
Life as a grander music than before. 

Up to the heights that hide the sun 

We hear the chorded tumult soar, 

The cheer of morning ardor well begun — 

A hundred instruments that blend as one : 

The dominant whistle and the whirring wheel ; 
The ringing peal 
Of falling steel on steel ; 

The rhythmic hammer and the trilling chain, 
With intervals as palpable as pain; 

The pulsing engine, the insistent drill, 
Treble of steam and bass of roaring train, 

With Echo making fugue from hill to hill. 

O loyal orchestra by great composer led ! 

Thy touch on every string and key 



376 GOETHALS OF PANAMA 

Has wrought this noble minstrelsy, 
Giving a soul to brass and wood inert or dead, 
Till all confusions were in beauty wed, 
And in the players and the theme 
One harmony arose supreme — 
Ungrudging service sounding like a psalm. 
For this the palm ! 
Soldier of Peace, well done ! 



VII 



Brother of Man, all hail ! 
Through such as thee and those that with thee 
wrought 
The world is daily saved — ay, ever saved shall be. 
Not by some magic alchemy 
By bended sages through the centuries sought ; 
Not by some cloistered mystery of life; 
But by the sheer necessity of strife, 
The long, unsacred treadmill of routine. 
Oh, more puissant than the authentic mien 

Of sceptred king or queen, 
The virtues of the humble, ages-old, 
That, like the Milky Way, forever hold 
Their darkest night within a net of gold : # 
A natural faith the bookman cannot daunt, 
Work, patience, discipline, the comradeship of 

want, 
And simple love assuaging sorrow gaunt. 
Great is Invention ! Do its annals mark 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 377 

A single virtue newer than the Ark? 
Praise, then, the staunch, the overpitied poor, 
Who from their riches yet may save the rich, 
And something dearer than the Koh-i-noor 
Find for them in the mine or in the ditch. 
Happy the hands that have but clinging soil 
Of honest earth, unstained by blood or wrong, 
That make a knighthood of their iron toil, 
And even from a pittance save a song. 
No overseer of Egyptian brood, 
But comrade of their swarthy day, wert thou. 

Of all that digged or hewed 
None feared thy frown or for thy favor sued, 
For lambent justice dwelt beneath thy brow. 

Thy gentle strength, thy kindly calm, 

Were for their bruises satisfying balm. 

For this, to them and thee, the palm ! 



VIII 



Servant of Man, well done ! 

Thy war of Peace is won. 
The dream of continents five and centuries four 

Is dream no more. 

Now to new visions, than the old 
More wonderful and bold. 

Let sage and seer 
Into the dark more confidently peer, 
To find the boon in every shape of fear, 



378 GOETHALS OF PANAMA 

The cure that Nature holds for every hurt. 
Now let some stripling, venturous and alert, 

Trailing a wilder thought 

Than Science yet has sought, 

Startle shy Knowledge from her inner lair. 
Our best, that first was but a castle in the air, 

Let it be strong as fair. 
Come true all happy tales to children told, 
And cloth-of-frieze be turned to cloth-of-gold. 

Let the imprisoned mind 

But beat upon its bars, 't will find 
The painted barriers made to break, not bind. 
Man is Imagination's only heir : 
His messengers of Dream and Dare 
He launches from the teeming port of Night 

To overtake the flight 
Of fleet-winged Progress, laden with new might, 
Which to the foremost she lets fall, 
The prize of one, the wealth of all. 



Who can foretell what blessing may not hap 

From this one hair-breadth line upon the map? 

What treasure have we was not first a dream? 

Seeing the Future but in flash and gleam, 

Doubt we To-morrow? On the once-veiled track 

Of opulent Yesterday, look back ! 
The arsenal of our courage is the Past — 
The unforgotten great that did not yield, 
The unremembered many left upon the field, 

Each loyal to his vision to the last. 



GOETHALS OF PANAMA 379 



IX 



Then come with pomp and joy of color-streaming 

ships, 
With shouts of their unshotted iron lips, 
With choral song and no unnoble speech, 
The good of all eclipsing good of each, 
And, while like incense is the smoke upcurled, 
Let this our child be sponsored by the world. 

Then dedicate to dreams this dream fulfilled : 

To Hope, the dream on which all dreams we build, 

To Honor, what in honor was conceived, 

To Brotherhood, whereby it was achieved, 

To Peace, that there no hostile gun may sound 

And all the Earth at last be holy ground ; 

Ay, to that dream of dreams, most strangely 

wrought, — 
To Man, the Almighty's most amazing thought. 

O Soldier of the blameless sword ! 
Who serves mankind is servant of the Lord. 
Servant of God, well done ! 

1914-15. 



380 THE CORRIDORS OF CONGRESS 

THE CORRIDORS OF CONGRESS 

(revisited in vacation) 

Tread soft, intruding step, this empty haunt 
Of swirling crowds has sanctity of grief ; 
Precincts of sadness are these gilded halls — 
The silent crypts of far and turbulent years. 
These stairways have been treadmills of despair, 
Runways of greed these narrow passages — 
The skirmish-lines of battles fought within, 
Where many a hope, sore-wounded, struggled on 
To perish in the din of others' joy. 

Let Fancy listen at these listening walls 

And give us back the record that they bear, — 

These phonographs of sorrow, where are writ, 

In Time's attenuated echoes, sounds 

Not louder than the falling of a tear 

Or sigh of lovers hiding from pursuit. 

Fancy, our finer ear, may here disclose 

Whispers of corner-born conspiracies ; 

The embrasured window's furtive interview ; 

The guarded plot ; the treacherous promise given ; 

The tragedy that here was masked as hope. 

Here the dark powers conspired, using as bribes 

Our dearest virtues — goodness, friendship, love. 

Here many who came with dawn upon the brow, 

A voice of confidence, a knightly port, 

Noble expectancy in every step, 

Their own ambition with their country's, one, 

Forgot their holy dreams beneath the stars, 



THE CORRIDORS OF CONGRESS 381 

Sunk in a noonday stupor of prudent air, 
Or, caught by tyrannous currents of routine, 
Swept, first resisting, then resisting not, 
Into that pleasant land of Compromise 
That neighbors Hell. 

Here is the dryasdust 
Who thinks in dollars, scorning sentiment ; 
The township patriot, letting terrors rage 
If only he be safe ; the timid good 
For whose slow suffrage all the bold contend ; 
The velvet orator whose magniloquence, 
Prick it with wit, runs streams of Privilege ; 
The soft-shod schemer, voice behind his hand, 
And flattering arm about his victim's neck ; 
The vulgar blusterer, to whom we trust 
The jewel of the nation's dignity, 
Who cannot guard his own ; and, faithful clog 
About the feet of Progress, he who spurns 
All as exotic not in his dooryard found, 
Holding the riches of the world as toys : 
Books as expedients to divert the mind 
From the dull scenery 'twixt town and town; 
Art as an adult's picture-book, and Verse 
But as a quarry for a funeral speech. 

But one may read a cheerier record here : 

The statesman rare, compact of bold and wise, 

Loving his country like an ancient Greek, 

Physician to the body politic, 

And with physician-chivalry so imbued 

The honest crave his voice, and every rogue 

Reckons him enemy ; the sturdy drudge 



3S2 THE CORRIDORS OF CONGRESS 

Who knows the elusive fact cannot be caught 

In nets of intuition, — sentinel 

Upon the nation's treasure-castle walls, 

Alert to stealthy peril in the night 

From Waste the Traitor as from Greed the Foe ; 

The civic soldier, fighting for his land 

As truly as the veteran who defied 

Ambush of fen or forest, standing firm 

To conscience' needle, though from every point 

The shifting winds be clamoring for the wrong. 

Oh, there 's a bravery greater than the assault 

On ramparts flaming death when but the touch 

Of comrade's shoulder gives the heart support, 

When every leaping impulse to go on 

Is multiplied to madness by the crowd, 

And Life is but an alms by Duty flung. 

Peace needs the stouter heart, the cooler mind; 

The truceless warfare on the soul's frontiers 

Calls for a lonelier fortitude ; and oft 

The man that will not yield an inch to blows 

Can keep no barrier to tears. He that, alone, 

Would feed his body to the hungry fire, 

Let but a loved one plead, his will is wax. 

Oh, in the unimpassioned scales of Time 

More than the courage of momentum weighs 

The courage of resistance, when to yield 

Is easy as to breathe, and angels urge 

' ' Only do naught and let the devil pass." 

What Iliads of siege these walls could tell ! 
What shattered lines a hundred times retrieved 
From lingering defeat — now by the swords, 



THE CORRIDORS OF CONGRESS 383 

Now by the shields, of some sworn group of knights — 

To sweep at last to wreathed victory ! 

What single combats while the hosts looked on! 

What hopes forlorn that failed so gloriously 

That History dropped her stylus to admire ! 

Of all the hands that held our fasces up, 

I mind me of one servant of the State 

Who walked these halls erect in body and mind. 

Not to corroding ease he gave his days 

But paid his country, coin for coin, in toil. 

Her cut-purse enemies within her gates, 

Her gentlemanly murderers of men's souls, — 

Who with foul gold would poison every fount 

Of Hope and Justice we have built for all, — 

And their accomplices who smilingly 

Betray a nation to oblige a friend, 

Him came not nigh with their accursed arts, 

To tempt, to beg, to threaten, to cajole. 

Though richly gifted, he disprized his gifts — 

Far vision, loyal reasoning, kindling speech, 

And true intent that pilots in the dark. 

Not faultless, he could frankly own his fault, 

And salve with candor the impetuous wound. 

While he was speaking nothing seemed of worth 

But the high path he trod — not happiness, 

Nor peace, nor love, nor leisured luxury, 

Nor that acclaim of many called success, 

But to be leader in the march of Man. 

With more ambition, he had been of those 

Who from its trance of comfort wake the world, 

And leave a name to stir the pulse of youth. 



384 THE CORRIDORS OF CONGRESS 

Thoughtless of fame, — without the artist-sense 

Of the deed's value miscalled vanity — 

He left to chance the record of those days. 

His tribute is the passionate regret 

Of comrades fighting still, the respect of foes, 

Who miss his swift sword and his dented shield. 

Remembering how at one great breach he stood 

Pleading for honor when men sued for gain, 

I hear not only echoes of his voice 

But strains of patriot music from the Past : 

The harp of David, laureate of the Lord, 

Sounding the spirit's summons to his race ; 

The lyre of Sophocles, half looking back 

To cheer his followers, now as brave as he ; 

The horn of Roland, clear from brim to brim 

Of Pyrenean valleys, with its call, 

"Come up and find your courage on the heights." 

envoi 

Not only with a brother's pride and ldve 
Weave I for him this coronal of verse — 
Affection's salvage from the wreck of Time — 
But with the hope that for some wavering soul, 
Tempted to point of tension, it may turn 
A cup of trembling to a cup of strength, 
And make us prouder of the brave who guard 
The walls that guard the freedom of the land. 



1914- 



VIII 
POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR 



THE COST 

Of late we heard dark oracles proclaim 
In History's alluring name, 
And with no flush of shame, 
The cure for all our civic ills is War ! 
And while they flaunt their flippant lore, 
With hideous irony the hope-barred door 
To Mars' red altar gapes, and forth there fare 
With torch and sword the Furies, driven by one 
Hailed as the god's bronze image come to life, 
But, nearer seen, a pietistic Hun ! 

With wild, fanatic air, 
In Death's-head helmet and greaves worn with prayer, 
He sets the unwilling world in myriad strife 
To orphan Europe, plowing hill and mead 
For Famine's harvest of the iron seed ; 
From that blue sea that knows no shore 
On fair, defenseless towns lets slip 

The havoc of his pirate ship ; 
And, drowning conscience with the cannon's roar, 
Holds his frank perfidy 
As part of a divine decree, 
While with a holy rage 
He wars upon his Age, 
Till the pure Alps ensanguine every sea ; 
Now, with a rusted key unlocks 
The evils of Pandora's box ; 

3*7 



388 THE COST 

Stills the world's music, stays its daily joys; 

Makes murderers of boys 
Who yesterday made mimic murder at their toys ; 

Turns brotherhood to hate, 
And floors the heavens with carnage that would sate 
All devils but a devil incarnate ! 

Greater than Bonaparte? — Yes, by a century's cost 
Of lives devoured, of fireside loving lost. 

O country mine ! 
Who shall seduce thee to such mad design? 
A nobler vision, happier fate be thine ! 

August 25, 1914. 



TO THE PEACE PALACE AT THE HAGUE 389 



TO THE PEACE PALACE AT THE HAGUE 

Builded of Love and Joy and Faith and Hope, 
Thou standest firm beyond the tides of war 
That dash in gloom and fear and tempest-roar, 
Beacon of Europe! — though wise pilots grope 

Where trusted lights are lost ; though the dread scope 
Of storm is wider, deadlier than before; 
Ay, though the very floods that strew the shore 
Seem to obey some power turned misanthrope. 

For thou art witness to a world's desire, 

And when — oh, happiest of days! — shall cease 
The throes by which our Age doth bring to birth 

The fairest of her daughters, heavenly Peace, 
When Man's red folly has been purged in fire, 
Thou shalt be Capitol of all the Earth. 

September 19, 1914. 



390 RHEIMS 



RHEIMS 



Fortress of the Spirit, and thyself 

But yesterday a soul ! What art thou now 

But walls and memory? Thou art than Man 

Not more immortal, though from dawn to dawn 

Of seven centuries thou heardst the tread 

Of swarming generations plodding by. 

Precinct of Peace, — now torn by wanton War; 

Altar where Morning might her matins say 

Or Evening chant her vespers, — now o'erthrown; 

Refuge for ages to the unconsoled 

By all but God forsaken : who hath dared 

Thy sanctuary now to violate? 

Thou that wert pride and cynosure of Art, 

Trumpet of History, a nation's shrine, 

Christener of Kings, a yearning world's delight, — 

Thy mellow voice from out the faded Past 

Is silent as thy belfry's sunken choir. 

For this it is, although we nightly bear 
The daily burden of mankind's distress 
Till the vast anguish numbs the wearied sense, 
Still heavier are our heavy hearts to-day. 



RHEIMS 391 



11 



How, with cold stone and scant and loveless toil, 

Shall be rebuilt the spirit of this fane? 

Who shall recloud its aisles with mystery, 

Till the beholder views himself with awe? 

How shall spilled wine, treasure of time and sun, 

Be from the ground regathered? Who shall invent 

The arts here lost, the accent of their speech? 

Who shall replant the race, and then await 

Its centuried ripening? Mourn, oh, mourn, mourn, 

mourn 
The brave that fall beneath this harvest moon 
When Death's swift sickle flies — each in his calm 
A ruined temple of the Living God ! 
They, too, are gone, but not as thou art gone, 
For, though Love doubt, still clings our faith to this 
'T is but their bodies have been slain ; but here, 
Here, where the mortal craves celestial life, 
Man has been able to destroy a soul ! 



in 



Of what avail to find the vandal hands, 

The few barbarians, by whose feeblest touch 

This deed was wrought from far? They witness wel\ 

The paradox of life that frights our peace : 

The weak is stronger than the strong! For who 

To-day so built in greatness as to be 



392 RHEIMS 

Armored against a whim ? A paltry match 
By malice struck, or mischief, and the town 
Rushes to sky and earth in ruin ! 

Yet— : . 
Shall we absolve the nameless for the known, 
Who, choosing war, chose aught that war might bring 
And murdered all this hoarded beauty? No, 
Though they should vaunt a thousand victories 
This is their dire defeat. Here have they reached 
All that ambition coveted, reversed. 
Thinking on Rheims hereafter, and on them, 
The world's heart shall grow leaden with dismay, 
And age to age the shame reverberate 
So loud, so far, that legions yet unborn, 
Learning their loss, shall execrate the crime 
And, grieving, mingle pity with their blame. 

September 28, 1914. 



TO THE SPIRIT OF BYRON 393 

TO THE SPIRIT OF BYRON 

"The Niobe of nations." 

Childe Harold. 

I 

Thou more than poet, Freedom's laureate, 

Byron ! Although some tyrant hand should blot 

All pages that to her are consecrate 

By loyal bards — thus doomed to be forgot — 
Who should despair if thine were quenched not? 

Oh, for thy voice when the world's heart is wrung 
At Honor made a barrack- jest and plot! 

To what invective hadst thou given tongue ! 
Mourner of Rome, what dirge for Belgium hadst thou 
sung ! " 



What of her children ravaged from her heart — 

Those cities proud of lore and fair of mien : 
Liege, that cradled Charlemagne ; that mart 

Of many seas, rich Antwerp ; old Malines ; 

And royal Brussels seated like a queen; 
Bruges the melodious, and flowery Ghent, 

And wise Louvain? . . . Oh, Byron, hadst thou 
seen 
The tears and terror, who could be content 
By lesser song than thine that grief and blame be blent ? 



39 A TO THE SPIRIT OF BYRON 



in 



Revered is Valor — ay, but Honor more. 

A score of centuries doth History save 
Caesar's "brave Belgians": for how many a score 

Shall live the word these to the Teuton gave 

When they must choose dishonor or the grave ! 
They knew before they took Despair to wife, 

Man's mind and not his master makes him slave. 
What theme for thee, ere, Singer of Great Strife, 
To Belgium thou hadst poured libation of thy life ! 



November 3, 1914. 



THE NEW WORLD 395 



THE NEW WORLD 

"Come, let us make a new world," said the proud, — 

' ' The iron image of our perfect plan. 

Let those who cannot yield to those who can. 
No place for tears, or pity, or the crowd 
Of weaklings. Let no patriot's head be bowed 

With his sire's shame : call no one courtesan 

If she be breeder of the Mightier Man 
Whose valor vaunts our glory far and loud.',' 

Mad pupils of a mad philosopher, 

Think ye you have but armies to subdue ? 

Your foe is Woman ! Hear the march of her 
Through centuries, from the caverns to the blue 

Of visioned peaks. Wrong ruled the years that were, 
But Justice, queened by Pity, rules the new. 

April, 1915. 



396 THE HAUNTING FACE 



THE HAUNTING FACE 

(on the portrait of a child lost 
in the "lusitania") 

Dear boy of the seraphic face, 

With brow of power and mouth of grace, 

And deep, round eyes, set far apart, 

So that the mind should match the heart ! 

Not Raphael's leaning cherub had 
More beauty than this winsome lad, 
Nor Andrea's little John more joy 
Than dimpled in this darling boy. 

What mother could so happy be 
As not to covet such as he ? 
What childless passer could forego 
The smiling of that Cupid's-bow? 

Here promise spoke in every curve : 
The wit to see, the heart to serve ; 
In fine proportions here did reign 
An open nature, sweet and sane. 

What wonder fancy vied with hope, 
To read his radiant horoscope, 
And find within his future deed 
The rescue of some mighty need : — 



THE HAUNTING FACE 397 

A patriot, to save the State ; 
A bard, to take the sting from Fate ; 
A prophet, men should know not of, 
To lift the fainting world by love ! 

Mourn those — and mourn not with despair — 
Who find life's last adventure fair, 
But let your treasured tears be spilled 
For noble presage unfulfilled. 

Mine fall unbidden as I look, 
Here, upon youth's unfinished book, 
And with the loss my heart is torn 
As Heaven had withdrawn the morn. 

Ah, could I know why over me 
His spirit has such potency, 
Then might I know how love began 
And stays, the mystery of Man. 

Child of the future ! Beauty's flower ! 
His gentle image should have power 
The conscience of a realm to wring 
And haunt the pillow of a king. 



June 26, 1915. 



398 EDITH CAVELL 



EDITH CAVELL 

Room 'mid the martyrs for a deathless name ! 
Till yesterday, in her how few could know 
Black War's white angel, succoring friend and foe- 

Whose pure heart harbored neither hate nor blame 

When Need or Pity made its sovereign claim. 
To-day she is the world's ! Its poignant woe, 
We thought had been outwept, again doth flow 

In tenderest tears that multiply her fame. 

Oh, something there is in us yet, more bright 

Than Rouen's hungry flames — that could consume 

Jeanne's slender limbs but not her spirit's might. 
Fate still has noble colors in her loom. 

One lonely woman's courage in the night 
Has sealed the savage Hohenzollerns' doom ! 

October 22, 1915. 



SHAKESPEARE 399 



SHAKESPEARE *' 



England, that gavest to the world so much — 

Full-breathing Freedom, Law's security, 

The sense of Justice (though we be not just) — 

What gift of thine is fellow unto this 

Imperishable treasure of the mind, — 

Enrichment of dim ages yet to be ! 

Gone is the pomp of kings save in his page, 

Where by imagination's accolade 

He sets the peasant in the royal rank. 

Love, like a lavish fountain, here o'erflows 

In the full speech of tender rhapsody. 

He dreamed our dreams for us. His the one voice 

Of all humanity. Or knave or saint, 

He shows us kindred. Partisan of none, 

Before the world's censorious judgment-seat 

We find him still the advocate of each, 

Portraying motive as our best defense. 

Historian of the Soul in this strange star 

Where Vice and Virtue interchange their masks ; 

Diviner of Life's inner mysteries, 

He yet bereaves it not of mystery's charm, 

And makes us all the wounds of Life endure 

For all the balm of Beauty. 

England, now, 
When so much gentle has been turned to mad, 

* Written by invitation of the British Committee of the 
Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration. 



400 SHAKESPEARE 

When peril threatens all we thought most safe, 

When Honor crumbles, and on Reason's throne 

Black Hate usurps the ermine, oh, do thou 

Remember Force is still the Caliban 

And Mind the Prospero. Keep the faith he taught, 

Speak with his voice for Freedom, Justice, Law, — 

Ay, and for Pity, lest we sink to brutes. 

Shame the fierce foe with Shakespeare's noble word. 

Say, England was not born to feed the maw 

Of starved Oblivion. Let thine ardent youth 

Kindle to flame at royal Hal's behest 

And thy wise elders glow with Gaunt' s farewell. 

His pages are the charter of our race. 

Let him but lead thy leaders, thou shalt stand 

Thy Poet's England, true and free and strong : 

By his ideals shalt thou conqueror be, 

For God hath made of him an element, 

Nearest Himself in universal power. 

February 12, 1916. 



EMBATTLED FRANCE 401 



EMBATTLED FRANCE 

Across the sea that once was free now let the message 

leap 
That France has won our Western hearts, and waked 

our souls from sleep ! 
Proud land ! No more shall we mistake the shallows 

for the deep. 

They knew her not who lightly thought her frivolously 

gay- 
She who first taught our grimmer world the sanity of 

play; 
They saw the birds that fly the nest but not the brood 

that stay. 

And we who knew and loved her true and shared her 

welcome kind — 
The welcome of her heart, and more, the welcome of 

her mind — 
How could we know these newer bonds that evermore 

shall bind! — 

That she, the Queen of Peace serene, who sought the 

sword no more, — 
That she, the Queen of Art, who keeps the key of 

Beauty's door, 
More royal than her royal lines, should be the Queen 

of War! — 



402 EMBATTLED FRANCE 

For, though the years have drowned in tears her 

thrones and quarterings, 
She, kingless, has not lost the proud residuum of 

kings: 
Noblesse oblige is written fair on every flag she flings. 

Let others plead a brutal need and compromise with 

faith, 
And soil the robe of honor, and make of joy a wraith, 
No taint of lie shall linger in any word she saith. 

They reckoned ill who thought her will was sunk in 

sloth or pride, 
Who held as weak her patience and on her feuds relied. 
No power can lock the scabbards where thinking 

swords abide. 

Oh, there is calm of Sabbath psalm and there is calm 

of woe, 
And calm of slaves who never the calm of freemen 

know, 
When, though the storm may tear the wave, the sea is 

calm below. 

Upon the air no martial blare proclaimed the fateful 

call; 
No drum need make the summons the spirit makes to 

all; 
Not softlier to the solemn earth the autumn leaflets 

fall. 



EMBATTLED FRANCE 403 

With gaze that saw far things of awe she stood as in a 
trance, 

But faltered not before the shock of War's long- 
dreaded chance, 

And every soul was born again — an effigy of France ! 

Oh, eyes that weep in lonely sleep but show no 

waking tear, 
Oh, lips with their brave silences and lingering words 

of cheer: 
What memories of parting have made the dangers 

dear! 

And when the breath of icy Death sweeps like a winter 

rain, 
And like a scythe the iron hail cuts down the human 

grain, 
How bleed we with her wounded and sorrow for her 

slain ! 

And when beside the Marne's red tide — a lioness at 

bay — 
She gave September unto Mars to make him holiday, 
She saved with hers our kindred soil three thousand 

miles away. 

How we acclaim Man's sacred name, as second unto 

God, 
And deem our bond a brotherhood divine of cloud and 

clod! 
Where are men fellows but in France, save underneath 

the sod? 



404 EMBATTLED FRANCE 

Her heart a cup of joy filled up to greet the dancing 

day, 
How willingly she spilled the wine and threw the cup 

away 
That deserts yet unpeopled may live in peace for aye ! 

The triple watchword of her faith shall spread to 

every land, 
Till free and equal comrades th' ennobled nations 

stand, 
And all shall take the sacrament from her devoted 

hand. 

And when Hate's last far crop is past, sown broadcast 

by the blind, 
The memory of her chivalry shall stir in humankind 
A love akin to bridal love, — the passion of the mind. 

Envoi, to the Republic 

When Peace and Toil shall guard thy soil in all its 

ancient girth, 
And Freedom, by thy fortitude, has found a newer 

birth, 
We still shall cry, * ' My France, Our France, the 

France of all the Earth!" 

March, 1916. 



IX 

POEMS CHIEFLY OF FRIENDSHIP 
OR ADMIRATION 



QUID PRO QUO 

What will you give for Friendship ? View it near : 
The warp so firm, the woof so beautiful — 
The very stuff of life ! 'T will keep you warm 
When silken Love, that takes the vagrant eye 
With its smooth touch and tints of changing light, 
Wears thin against the freezing winds of fate. 
See, this is not of cold, mechanic weave 
With showy dyes of aniline device, 
But like an ancient, human tapestry, 
The concord of robust and gentle tones, 
Where threads of Joy are softened to content, 
And even Sorrow's add a note of peace. 

What will you give for Friendship? Yes, 'tis dear, 

But how well worth the cost ! Bid high, pay gladly. 

Sure of its value, sure of your own need, 

Take every risk. Three comradeships there are : 

One that makes man more brother than his twin, 

One that can sister woman in distress, 

And one that both may share, the costliest 

Because the rarest. This how few may know — 

Its warmth, its beauty, its supernal charm ! 

To find it needs such instinct, such high thought, 

Deep sacrifice, sweet ardor, holy faith. 

And, then, the price ! — dear treasures of the soul ; 

Pearls of hid tears; and jeweled hours lost 

To absence and forever unretrieved ; 

407 



408 QUID PRO QUO 

And, too, perchance, as penalty for joy, 

Suspicion, the chief food of idle minds, 

Invoking censure, by a cruel code 

As old as envy, upon fancied faults, — 

The vulgar making statutes for the pure, 

As though the crow could teach the lark to sing ! 

What will you give for Friendship ere it pass ? 
If you have timid blood, plod on through life 
Content with little, colder than your grave. 
If you be brave and loyal, here 's my grasp, 
And we '11 find heaven 'spite of foe and friend. 



A SONG OF PARTING 409 

A SONG OF PARTING 

Go not so soon, dear days 
Of sunlight and of haze, 
When o'er the spirit flows 
The soft gray sea's repose, 
And memories of distress 
Yield to the air's caress. 
Nights of the waning moon, 
Go not so soon ! 

Go not so swift, fair time 
Of friendship, like a rhyme 
That holds in harmony 
What was and what shall be. 
Thou that hast brought the zest 
Of animated rest, 
Prolong thy perfect gift, 
Go not so swift ! 

Go not so fast, sweet hour 
Of farewell to the flower. 
The mystery of eve 
Within our reverie weave. 
Whisper that all we see 
Is naught to what shall be, 
That Life, that Love shall last ! 
Go not so fast ! 



Horsehead House, July, 191 5. 



410 READING HORACE 



READING HORACE 

Oh, were we good when we are wise! — 
Or haply, wise when we are good ! 

But, fool or sage, some comfort lies 
In knowing Horace understood 

Our follies in their olden guise ! 

Of all the full Augustan choir 
Our one contemporary bard, 

Who strikes upon a silver lyre, 
Where not a note is harsh or hard, 

The human chords that never tire. 

Live how he may, whene'er he sings 

A poet is a democrat; 
Down two millenniums there rings 

The song of Leisure's Laureat 
In praise of all the simple things. 

What deep contentment broods above 
That refuge in the Sabine Hills 

From all that Rome was fashioned of — 
Strife, envy, the luxurious ills 

Men, town-imprisoned, learn to love ! 

Though oft he dwells on death, 't is e'er 
With swift recoil to life. Joy, joy 



READING HORACE 411 

Is all his goal ! Though reefed sails dare 

The dreaded seas to Tyre or Troy, 
His placid song is foe to care. 

Poor hater was he, save of greed 
And gluttons and the vulgar mind — 

(Thou votary of thy surer creed, 
Ask heaven if thou be more kind 

Than was that heart of pagan breed ! ) 

Vowed to the laurel from the day 
The doves descried his lids supine 

And hid his limbs in leafy play; 
A nursling of the dancing vine, 

His verse was vintage gold and gay. 

Give me the glowing heart, or none — 
Not friendship's altar but its fire. 

In his red veins how life did run ! 
Had ever poet wiser sire? 

Had ever sire tenderer son? — 

He, humble, candid, sane and free, 
Whom e'en Maecenas could not spoil; 

Who wooed his fields with minstrelsy 
As rich as wine, as smooth as oil, 

And kept a kiss for Lalage. 



Ah, dear to me one night supreme — 
A voice he would have joyed to hear, 



412 READING HORACE 

Its music married to his theme — 

When two new-mated minds drew near 
And mingled in his lilting stream. 

Oh, lover of sweet-sounding words, 
That in thy tones but glow and soar, 

Come ! * * Horace with his flocks and herds 
Waits thy revealing voice. Once more 

Bring back to me the brooks and birds ! 



GIFTS 413 



GIFTS 

When color, fragrance, form 

On the steeped sense the rose 

With lavish boon bestows, 
What is there left to give? 

When after leaden storm 

The thrush outpours the rain 

Of happy song again, 
What is there left to give? 

When one star, brave and warm, 

The sentinel of Night, 

Yields to the surging light, 
What is there left to give? 

My rose, my thrush, my star that goes before, 
What canst thou give but more? 
Oh, live, live, live! 



4T4 ORIOLE AND POET 



ORIOLE AND POET 

Little bird of the bruised wing, 

Swept to the shelter of my door, 
Torn is thy nest in the willow swing. 
Hast thou forgotten how to sing? 

Shall thy flash be seen in the green no more? 

Come, let me bind up the bruised wing. 

At my open cage-door linger long. 
And if for a while near the willow swing 

There be one bird less, there '11 be no less song 
Thy sorrow shall teach me how to sing. 



THE SONG OF ANY LOVER 415 



THE SONG OF ANY LOVER 

Is she fair? You ask me — me her lover ! 

Who can measure beauty that beguiles? 
Who will stop to count his one star over ? 
If you would yourself the truth discover, 

All you need is patience, till she smiles. 

Is she true ? But how could you believe me — 
You who call me bondman to her wiles — 

You, who taunt that Time will undeceive me ? 

Keep your sordid doubts, my friend, but leave me 
Bondman unto Duty when she smiles. 

Is she young? Who reckons age by birthdays? — 
Counts his happy voyages by miles ? 

Better one of heaven than twenty earth-days. 

She who adds new merriment to mirth-days — 
She is Youth Eternal when she smiles. 



416 A PRAYER IN THE DARK 



A PRAYER IN THE DARK 

Maker of love and longing ! 

Thou fountain of our tears ! 
When in one night come thronging 

The memories of years, 
God of the fallen sparrow ! 

God of the mateless dove ! 
Give to her lonely sorrow 

The solace of Thy love. 



KARL BITTER 417 



KARL BITTER 

O multitude of the untimely dead, 

Who somewhere find and seal the endless thread 

That ever to our eyes must broken be — 
Ye who now labor with no Death to dread : 

Take to your happy ranks this new access 
Of flaming spirit, this pure guilelessness. 

This noble fancy, this brave loyalty 
That cherished Beauty more, not Honor less: — 

Him whose divining skill had power to save 
Too few alas ! of all our wise and brave 

In bronze so true that what to-day he took 
From Life, to-morrow he to History gave: — 

Him in the warmth of whose inspiring word 
Youth was to memorable ardor stirred, 

And found so clear a path that, though the guide 
No more was seen, the pilgrim never erred; — 

In whom such frank simplicity did dwell 
To know him little was to know him well, 
Till even the passer-by shall long recall 
The cheerful music of a silent bell. 

Masters of Art and servitors of Song, 
Who somewhere your recessional prolong, 



4i8 KARL BITTER 

Forgive us if too much we mourn the man 
So welcome now in your beloved throng. 

As ye are happy at his coming, we 
May not dissolve in grief his memory, 

But keep his faith in Beauty as our own, 
With grateful joy that such a soul should be. 



THE PRESIDENT 419 



THE PRESIDENT 

(THE PANAMA TOLLS) 

He plead for honor and the country's good, 

And craved "ungrudging measure" of support. 

The Sages gave approval as they could, 
But left to History the ungrudging sort. 



4 2o CONSTANCE 



CONSTANCE 

First time we met I saw her not : 't was night ; 

But fancy read her lovely spirit right : 
Soft as the dark her voice 
That made my lonely heart rejoice. 

When next we met, or ere I heard her speak 
My fancy fared afar her like to seek : 
Where had I seen that face — 
In Reynolds' or in Romney's grace? 

And when she spoke — most like a morning child 
Waking to wonder — how her spirit smiled! 

Then voice and face were one : 

Music and Art in unison. 



LOVE-LETTERS AT AUCTION 421 



LOVE-LETTERS AT AUCTION 

Of old, or knight or king, 

Each feared that Time would bring 

Unto the block his head. 

Rest peacefully, ye dead : 

Yours was a gentle crime. 

Now to the block by Time 

(Praise the collector's art!) 

Is brought one's heart. 



422 THE LAGGARD POET 



THE LAGGARD POET 

(TO WILLIAM WATSON ) 

'T is said of thee — as 't were a virtue rare! — 
That thou, first seeing, like fair rose on vine, 

Her than the bluebell and the rose more fair, 
But half a moon let pass ere she was thine. 

Thou caitiff knight! What one of Arthur's clan 
E'er had his love at such amazing cost? 

Call thyself laggard, but no longer man — 
Thou spendthrift of a priceless fortnight lost ! 



X 

LATER POEMS OF THE 
GREAT WAR 



TO PADEREWSKI, PATRIOT 42; 

TO PADEREWSKI, PATRIOT 

Son of a martyred race, that long 
Has poured its sorrow into song, 
And taught the world that grief is less 
When voiced by Music's loveliness: 
How shall its newer anguish be 
Interpreted, if not by thee? 

In whose heart dearer doth abide 
Thy land's lost century of pride 
Since triple tyrants tore in three 
That nation of antiquity — 
But could not lock with prison keys 
The freeman's sacred memories? 

Now, when thy soil lies wrecked and rent, 
By cruel waves of warfare spent, 
Till Famine counts so many slain 
It looks on Slaughter with disdain, 
However others grieve, thou show'st 
The noble spirit suffers most. 

Master, with whom the world doth sway 
Like meadow with the wind at play, 
May Heaven send thee, at this hour, 
Such access of supernal power 
That every note beneath thy hand 
Shall plead for thy distracted land. 



April 13, 1916. 



4 20 THE NEW SLAVERY 



THE NEW SLAVERY 

(ON THE EXPATRIATION BY GERMANY OF CIVIL 
POPULATIONS OF BELGIUM) 

Men of Freedom, for whose ease, 
Man for man, some hero died : 

Hear ye, over shuddering seas, 

What the winds have sobbed and cried? 

In the mirror of the moon 

Have ye read the shame of noon? 
Men of Freedom, hear ! 

Have ye heard the savage creed 
Of the War Lord's iron hand : 

Though the world's last drop shall bleed, 
Over all, the Fatherland — 

Over honor, over truth, 

Over love and over ruth? 
Men of Freedom, hear ! 

Not the Germany we knew — 

Lessing's heart and Goethe's mind, 

Schiller's vision, far and true, 
And the peace that Kant divined ; 

But a land of lords and braves — 

Half of masters, half of slaves. 
Men of Freedom, see7 



THE NEW SLAVERY 427 

Of another world are these — 

Lords of war with hearts of lead ; 

Boasting of new cruelties, — 

Brine for water, stones for bread. 

Ye with grief and pity wrung, 

These have never learned your tongue. 
Men of Freedom, see ! 

Now the latest horror cries 

Unto heaven — and unto earth! 
Trebly ravaged Belgium lies 

Tortured for the Teuton mirth. 
Was there of the Belgian heart 
Left enough to tear apart? 

Men of Freedom, see ! 

By the silent harps that hung 

On the banks of Babylon, — 
By the saints that Milton sung, — 

By the crowns of martyrs won,— 
By all human tragedies, — 
By the death that exile is, 

Men of Freedom, speak ! 

By the weakness of our great 

Who bequeathed a nation's sin 
To their sons to expiate, 

With a soul, to lose or win ; 
By his strength who overthrew 
That despair and held us true, 

Men of Freedom, speak ! 



428 THE NEW SLAVERY 

By the red of Serbia's sod ; 

Poland, paved with little bones ; 
Lone Armenia's wail to God ; 

Widowed Europe's haunting moans ; 
By the million ills that flow 
From one King's choice of war and woe, 

Men of Freedom, speak ! 

By the things ye hold most fair, 
Love of home and love of breath ; 

By the child's faith in his prayer ; 

By things more great than Life and Death, 

Lest your grave be shamed of ye, 

Speak ! — and ... if the need shall be, 
Men of Freedom, strike! 

December 15, 1916. 



--——-■*'--■■'■■■■■-■"- - -- ■■■■ ■■-■■ '■---■ 



THE PRICE OF HONOR 429 



THE PRICE OF HONOR 

(THE COLOMBIAN INDEMNITY) 

How much is a country's honor worth ? 

When the cynic of other lands shall scoff 
At our sacred faith as a thing for mirth, 

As a race of swine for a golden trough — 
'Brotherhood? — only a sleeper's dream; 

Liberty ? — naught but escape from law ; 
Courage? — merely a school-boy's theme — 

A sword in its sheath you will never draw" ; 
Shall we haggle for honor and bargain and bid 
And count the nails in a coffin-lid? 

How much is a country's honor worth? 

When we turn on the cynic and cite with pride 
The Open Door for the surging earth, 

With opportunity's welcome wide; 
The path for all from sea to sea ; 

The rescued islands of east and west — 
Made free, or tutored to be free ; 

And Hope, the friend of the worst and best ; 
Shall we count the value, in dollars down, 
Of the jeweled stars in our country's crown? 



430 THE PRICE OF HONOR 

How much is our country's honor worth? 

We may reckon the census of numbers and gold 
And plot and appraise the nation's girth, 

But the rainbow's beauty, what hand can hold? 
And the wind, is it richer for music or power? 

— Oh, ye who stand at our threatened gate 
And plan for its strength in a perilous hour, 

The soul is the fortress of the State ! 
Let the land be proud with the pride of men : 
Give us our measureless honor again. 

February, 1917. 



THE ANSWER OF THE LORD 43* 



THE ANSWER OF THE LORD 



"How long, O Lord, how long"— 

A myriad voices cry— 
"Shall wanton powers of wrong 
Thy sacred laws defy? 
The dead are like the sand, 

And woe and misery 

The sea bears to the land, 

The rivers to the sea. 

"The innocent are slain 

At Mercy's bolted door ; 
The infant's wail is vain, 

For pity is no more. 
When shall the ruin cease 

And Thou confound the strong? 
Till the white days of peace 

How long, O Lord, how long?" 



432 THE ANSWER OF THE LORD 



II 



"How long, O men, how long, 

Lift ye weak hands to Me 
To rid you of great wrong ? 

For this I left you free. 
A million years have gone 

To grow the perfect flower; 
I reared you from the spawn 

To fit you for this hour. 



"I took you from the ooze 

Ere yet man measured time ; 
I gave you mind, to choose ; 

I gave you soul, to climb. 
I willed you unafraid 

Of all, — nay, more: that ye, 
Though in Mine image made, 

Should not be slaves of Me. 



"I gave you Law, to guide, 

That needed not My hand ; 
With Reason, to decide, 

And Conscience, to command. 
Ye are not beast or tree, 

Ye are not stone or clod, 
Your upward path is free, 

Ye are the sons of God. 



THE ANSWER OF THE LORD 433 

"And shall ye then descend 

From your divine estate 
The craven neck to bend 

And call the yoke your fate? 
Wake from the sloth of night 

And drain life's precious bowl! 
The hour has come to smite, 

Or lose a people's soul. 

"Think not that I am dumb, 

Though ye be long withstood; 
Ye serve an age to come 

Who war for brotherhood. 
Delay not to release 

The arrow from its yew : 
I, who am God of Peace, 

Am God of Battle, too. 

"Then lift ye up stanch hearts, 

Make strong your hands of skill, 
And by your righteous arts 

Be partners of My will. 
Your breath, by Me endowed, 

If need give back again, 
That I once more be proud 

That I have made you men." 

March 3, 1917. 



434 TO THE FIRST GUN 



TO THE FIRST GUN 

Speak, silent, patient gun ! 

And let thy mighty voice 
Proclaim the deed is done — 

Made is the nobler choice ;. 
To every waiting people run 

And bid the world rejoice. 

Tell them our heaving heart 
Has found its smiting hand, 

That craves to be a part 
Of the divine command. 

Speak, prove us more than ease or mait, 
And vindicate the land. 

Thine shall the glory be 

To mark the sacred hour 
That testifies the free 

Will neither cringe nor cower. 
God give thy voice divinity, 

That Right be armed with Power. 

Thou art not lifeless steel 

With but a number given, 
But messenger of weal 

Hot with the wrath of Heaven. 
Go earn the right to Honor's seal — 

To have for Honor striven. 



TO THE FIRST GUN 435 

Lead us in holy ire 

The path our fathers trod ; 
The music of thy fire 

Shall thrill them through the sod. 
The smoke of all thy righteous choir 

Is incense unto God. 

And when long Peace is found 

And thou hast earned thy rest, 
And in thy cave of sound 

The sparrow builds her nest, 
By Liberty shalt thou be crowned 

Of all thy comrades, best. 

March 23, 1917. 



436 THE LEADER 



THE LEADER 

This is the man they deemed of languid blood, 
A schoolman versed in books, who, Hamlet-like, 
Showed but heat-flashes powerless to strike — 

His resolution blighted in the bud. 

They knew him not — nor we, who trusted him. 
See ! how his brooding purpose, taking form, 
Falls like swift lightning from long-gathered storm, 

While fateful thunder shakes the round world's rim. 

His country, stirred by him to lofty strife, 
Sharing his vision, with high passion thrills ; 
It climbs, renouncing minor goods and ills, 

And stands beside him at the crown of life. 

To a new knighthood he ordains the brave, 
Tc be soul-worthy of a freeman's birth — 
Not for our wrongs alone, but that on earth 

None shall be master, none shall be a slave. 

But yesterday a secret of his heart, 

His welcome message floods the globe like light ; 

It cheers the farthest darkness by its might ; 
Its boldness makes the undissceptered start. 



THE LEADER 437 

Where it has spread, by sea or mountain side 
Or by the bivouac of the caravan, 
The lowliest feels a part of Heaven's plan 

And stands erect with newly wakened pride. 

Beleaguered Liberty takes heart again, 
Hearing afar the rescuing bugles blow ; 
And even in the strongholds of the foe 

His name becomes the whispered hope of men. 

April 6, 1917. 



438 THE SWORD OF LAFAYETTE 



THE SWORD OF LAFAYETTE 

(INSCRIBED TO RAYMOND P0INCARE, PRESIDENT OF 
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC) 

It was the time of our despair, 
When lion-hearted Washington — 

That man of patience and of prayer — 
Looked sadly at each rising sun. 

In all the freedom-breeding air, 
Of hope and rescue there was none. 

When lo! — as down from Heaven let, 

There came the sword of Lafayette! 

Our harbors— how they danced with light! 

Our tireless bells — how they did ring ! 
Again we girded up to fight 

Not England, but her Prussian king. 
For here was succor, and the might 

Of one great soul's imagining . . . 
What wonder if our eyes be wet 
To see the sword of Lafayette ! 

Upon the walls where Justice keeps 
The swords she doth most gladly save, 

Not one of all so deeply sleeps 

Within the scabbard's honored grave 



THE SWORD OF LAFAYETTE 439 

But, listening for her call, it leaps, 

To live again among the brave. 
Thank Heaven our naked blade is set 
Beside the sword of Lafayette I 

Not his, not ours, the brutal strife, 

The vulgar greed of soil or dross ; 
The feet that follow drum and fife 

Shall tread to nobler gain or loss. 
'T is for the holiness of life 

The Spirit calls us to the Cross. 
Forget us, God, if we forget 
The sacred sword of Lafayette. 

April 17, 1917. 



440 TO RUSSIA NEW AND FREE 

TO RUSSIA NEW AND FREE 

(INSCRIBED TO MADAME BRESHKOVSKAYA) 

Land of the Martyrs — of the martyred dead 
And martyred living — now of noble fame ! 

Long wert thou saddest of the nations, wed 
To Sorrow as the fire to the flame. 
Not yet relentless History had writ of Teuton shame. 

Thou knewest all the gloom of hope deferred. 

'Twixt God and Russia wrong had built such bar 
Each by the other could no more be heard. 

Seen through the cloud, the child's familiar star, 
That once made Heaven near, had made it seem more 
far. 

Land of the Breaking Dawn ! No more look back 

To that long night that nevermore can be : 
The sunless dungeon and the exile's track. 
To the world's dreams of terror let it flee. 
To gentle April cruel March is now antiquity. 

Yet — of the Past one sacred relic save : 

That boundary-post 'twixt Russia and Despair, — 
Set where the dead might look upon his grave, — 
Kissed by him with his last-breathed Russian air. 
Keep it to witness to the world what heroes still may 
dare. 



TO RUSSIA NEW AND FREE 441 

Land of New Hope, no more the minor key, 
No more the songs of exile long and lone; 
Thy tears henceforth be tears of memory. 

Sing, with the joy the joyless would have known 
Who for this visioned happiness so gladly gave their 
own. 

Land of the warm heart and the friendly hand, 

Strike the free chord : no more the muted strings 1 
Forever let the equal record stand — 

A thousand winters for this Spring of Springs, 
That to a warring world, through thee, millennial 
longing brings. 

On thy white tablets, cleansed of royal stain, 

What message to the future mayst thou write! — 
The People's Law, the bulwark of their reign, 
And vigilant Liberty, of ancient might, 
And Brotherhood, that can alone lead to the loftiest 
height. 

Take, then, our hearts' rejoicing overilow, 
Thou new-born daughter of Democracy, 
Whose coming sets the expectant earth aglow. 
Soon the glad skies thy proud new flag shall see, 
And hear thy chanted hymns of hope for Russia new 
and free. 

April 20, 1917. 



442 THE VICTOR OF THE MARNE 



THE VICTOR OF THE MARNE 

(INSCRIBED TO JOSEPH JACQUES CESAIRE JOFFRE, 
MARECHAL DE FRANCE) 

Come, May, thou darling of the year, 

In every land adored, 
Bring us a draught of Nature's cheer 
In brimming chalice poured ; 
Lift high our welcome, while with flowers we wreathe 
a stainless sword. 



Give us the spirit's wine to pledge 

To him, the soul of France, 
Who stood before disaster's edge, 
Master of circumstance, 
And faced, unfaltering, and won that hour's portentous 
chance. 

Grant us a halcyon day of blue, 

With light and life aflame, 
That, like the Spring, we may renew 
The laurels of his fame, 
Since now to think of Liberty is but to breathe his name. 



THE VICTOR OF THE MARNE . 443 

Adown the bright and fluttering street 

Let serried thousands throng, 
And children march with eager feet 
In phalanxes of song, 
That Memory to their latest heirs his glorious deed 
prolong. 

If, for a breath, we crave relief 

From War's transcendent woe, 
Not less for France's noble grief 
Our kindred tears shall flow. 
We keep for timelier days the dirge our hearts too 
keenly know. 

Now, our thanksgiving to the Lord, — 

Who, through the ages' round, 
Doth choose the humble for his sword 

The mighty to confound, — 
That still the doom of Jericho the horns of Israel sound. 

Thanks for the soul that on the field 

Of lasting good or ill 
Gave to the land that would not yield 
His wisdom and his will, 
Till Fate, confirming man's resolve, once more was 
Freedom's shield. 



And thanks of solemn joy be made 

For those of every sky, 
Who, building up our barricade, 



444 THE VICTOR OF THE MARNE 

Our bitter cup put by, 
Till at their side we now have earned the privilege 
to die. 

Rejoice that, deaf to every lure, 

At last we gladly stand 
With those who make the Right secure, 
Comrades in heart and hand, 
Like them, Crusaders, sworn to save the greater Holy 
Land. 

Graves of the Marne ! Oh, not in vain 

Your broadcast seed was sown : 
Already nations love as men : 
Through you, forgot or known, 
In spite of frontiers and of flags the world shall be 
as one. 

May 9, 1917. 



TWO FLAGS UPON WESTMINSTER TOWERS 445 



TWO FLAGS UPON WESTMINSTER TOWERS 

"This day is holy" — so sweet Spenser wrote, 

Giving to Love the world's one bridal-song. 
Ah ! Could he see these flags together float 

Where the gray pinnacles of England throng, 
What bridal-song of nations would he sing ! 

How Shakespeare — through whose pageantry of 
State 
Trumpets of Freedom and of Justice ring — 

Our "true minds' marriage" now would celebrate! 

My country's poets, foes of tyranny, 

For great and generous England raise your voice ; 
Be yours the apocalypse of Liberty— 

A vision that shall call us to rejoice. 
Divine the omens of the glorious years 
From these free flags — if you can see for tears ! 

April 20, 191 7. 



446 THE CROWNED REPUBLIC 



THE CROWNED REPUBLIC 



Forgive us, Italy, who have loved thee long, 
Daughter of Beauty, Cynosure of Song, 
That we who knew thee fair should not have known 
thee strong. 

For Beauty is no weakling, taking odds 
From earthly Power and cringing at its nods, 
But giver of sovereign laws to immemorial gods. 

She is no mere contriver of design, 
Of thrilling color or uplifting line ; 
She sings within the soul a music all divine. 

And when she sets the ardent youth aflame 
With duty, brooking no unworthy aim, 
She is but Justice honored by another name. 



ii 

We should have read the roster of thy great 
Who from mismated fragments inchoate 
The fair mosaic made of thine harmonious state; 

Alike in nothing but in love of thee 
While thou wert yet a dream of Liberty, 
They gave thee all they were and all they hoped 
to be: — 



THE CROWNED REPUBLIC 447 

He of Savoy, first man and then a king ; 
He of Caprera, armed with David's sling; 
He of Turin, who won with wise imagining ; 

He of the Tuscan vineyards, firm as steel ; 
And he of Genoa, priest of the common weal, 
And he whose voice to Venice was a tocsin-peal. 

O land for whom thy sons were fain to die 
As lovers are to live ! No obloquy 
Their secrets could unlock, their purpose turn awry. 

In thy deep dungeons Freedom grew to might, 
Nourished by darkness as the rose by light. 
Would tyrants conquer Thought : they must abolish 
Night. 

Behind the bars where Settembrini dwelt, 
Beside the chains whose scars Poerio felt, 
Above the beds bereaved where dauntless women knelt, 

Thine image, as in Dante's vision, shone— *■ 
The Italy that some day would be one, 
When alien yoke was cleft and cruel sands were run. 



in 

Now, when the old oppressor of thy land 
Had weakly chosen by his side to stand 
Who holds the torch and bribe in either treacherous 
hand, 



448 THE CROWNED REPUBLIC 

Thought they to fright thee by war's awful price, 
Or silence thee by lure of paradise — 
Thee with thy glorious ancestry of sacrifice? 

Forgive us, we were over-slow to scan 
The incredible cunning of the monstrous plan 
Whereby the spider State has set its web for Man ; 

But fallen are the scales, and now our heart 
That with thee stormed the startled Alps, takes part 
With glad and welcome aid from mint and mine and 
mart. 

And, haply, on thy waves our ships may dare 
The iron shark within his stealthy lair 
Till the freed seas forget what late was their despair. 

Oh, fortunate if our torn flag be found 
Comrade of thine on some embattled ground 
Thenceforth by Garibaldi's memory made renowned. 

What name in all thine epic history 
But his to summon us and trumpet thee — 
Who found his foster land what thou wert born to be! 

Pillar of cloud and fire, his spirit soar'th 
Above thy eager legions pressing forth 
And cheers them on to save their brothers of the North. 

O Crowned Republic, let us be of those 
Who know and conquer all the people's foes — 

Without, within— that dare the gates of Freedom 
close. 

June 8, 1917. 



HYMN FOR AMERICA 449 



HYMN FOR AMERICA 

Where 's the man, in all the earth — 
Man of want or man of worth — 
Who shall now to rank or birth 

Knee of homage bend? 
Though he war with chance or fate, 
If his heart be free of hate, 
If his soul with love be great, 

He shall be our friend. 

Where 's the man, of wealth or wage, 
Dare bo traitor to his age, 
To the people's heritage 

Won by war and woe, — 
Counting but as private good 
All the gain of brotherhood 
By the base so long withstood? 

He shall be our foe. 

Where 's the man that does not feel 
Freedom as the common weal, 
Duty's sword the only steel 

Can the battle end? 
Comrades, chant in unison 
Creed the noblest 'neath the sun : 
"One for all and all for one," 
Till each foe be friend. 

June 10, 1917. 



450 A SONG FOR AMERICA 



A SONG FOR AMERICA 

How comely is our motherland, 

With joy for every eye ! 
O'er sunlit vales her mountains stand, 

Her prairies kiss the sky. 
From many an autumn-bordered lake 

Her fair streams seek the shore. 
We love her for her beauty's sake, 

But most for something more. 

What vigor in her throb and tread ! 

How dauntless is her mind ! 
She plants that continents be fed, 

And never looks behind. 
The magic of her lamp and tower 

O'ermates Aladdin's lore. 
We love her for her bounteous power, 

But most for something more. 

We love her for her tender heart, 

That thrills at Pity's call, 
Her will that Freedom's goodly part 

Shall be the share of all. 

Lord of the stricken world, we ask, 
(Proud peace or holy war), 

Renew her might for every task 
And guard her as of yore. 

June 16, 1917. 



AMERICA IN FRANCE 451 



AMERICA IN FRANCE 

"Oh, to be in England now that April 's there !" 

Browning. 

Oh, to be in Paris now that Pershing 's there ! 
To hear the waves of welcome that greet him every- 
where ; 
To see the children and the girls a-pelting him with 

flowers, 
And feel that every petal is meant for us and ours ; 
To know the brave smile 's come again to worn and 

widowed France, 
Whose banners — now, thank Heaven! with ours — are 

all that 's left to dance ; 
That war, that wakens hate in those who fight for love 

of war, 
Has made a wider world of love than ever was before ; 
To see this love find moving voice in living epigram : 
The Poilu and the Tommy and the Son of Uncle Sam, 
In a comradeship of Paris streets, like modern 

Musketeers, 
That, however near to laughter, is n't very far from 

tears ; 
To see our flag that stood for faith now stand at last 

for works, 
And prove that, at the pinch of things, we have no 

place for shirks ; 



452 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

To hear the hymn we sang so long, secure in sentiment, 
Played proudly to a land that learns how grimly it is 
meant. 

Oh, 't is a thrill to die upon, to help repay the debt 
We owe the gallant memory of the boyish Lafayette, — 
To know that we are brothers, in spite of race or 

tongue, 
To make the round world safe for Man . . . O God, 

that I were young ! 



TO THE SPIRIT OF LUTHER 453 



TO THE SPIRIT OF LUTHER 

ON LEARNING OF THE REPORTED APPEAL OF GERMANY TO 
MATRONS AND MAIDENS TO GIVE THEMSELVES "OFFICIALLY" 
TO THE PROPAGATION OF THE RACE, UNDER IMMUNITY 
FROM THE LAW 

Luther, come back to thy degenerate land, 
And see, as one who learned to love it sees, 
How it is sunk in crimes and cruelties, 

Lured by false glory to the soul's quicksand. 

The thunder Wittenberg could not withstand — 
Can it be silent when all honor flees 
And State, not Church, tempts with indulgences? 

Is there no lightning in the thunder's hand? 

What though they sing thy hymn who follow goals 
Of empire, futile numbers, godless power? 
Rescue thy people in the basest hour 

That ever Time has written on her scrolls. 
Let the mad miscreants at thine anger cower ! 

Brutes breed them bodies : who shall breed them souls ? 

May 14, 1917. 



XI 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



A TEACHER 1 

(inscribed to the beautiful memory of one who 
gave her life to her work) 

Go praise the Hero, ye who may : 

I sing the Teacher, — one for whom 
The morrow was but more to-day, — 
Whose fainting labor showed the way 
To pluck one's gladness from his doom. 

The leisure others gave to joy 

She gave to toil : to fill the day 
With wine of wisdom her employ. 
She, once as merry as a boy, 

Had long forgotten how to play. 

I see her when the scurrying band 
Have left her, weary and alone, 
Her pale cheek pillowed on her hand, 
Watching the wistful evening land 
Without repining, tear, or moan. 

1 Read before the Annual Convention of the National 
Education Association, Madison Square Garden, New 
York, July 6, 1916. 

457 



458 A TEACHER 

Mayhap her spirit, never sad, 

(Ah, what a challenge memory stirs!) 
Demanded why grim fate forbade 
Her motherhood, who gave each lad 
The love she might have given hers. 

She dwelt within a lifelong dream 

Of seeing lands of far romance, — 
Of loitering by Arno's stream, 
Of catching Athens' sunset gleam 
That can alone its fame enhance. 

Still, an uncloistered nun she went, 

With naught more fretful than a sigh, 
And in her happy task she spent 
Her sweetness, like some rose's scent 
In sacred treasury laid by. 

Her pure devotion did not gauge 
Her service by her daily need ; 
And not her scanty, grudging wage, 
Nor spectre of forsaken Age, 

Could take the beauty from her creed. 

She faced her calling as it stood — 

Incessant, onerous, obscure; 
Content if she but sometime could 
Be silent partner with the Good, 
Whose victory was to her so sure. 



A TEACHER 459 

She knew that all who reach the height 

The path of sympathy have trod; 
And pondered, many a wakeful night, 
How she could aid with gentle might 
The unseen miracles of God. 

What though she might not wait the fruit? 

What though she went before the flower? 
She gave the timbre to the lute, 
And in the voice that else were mute 

Divined the rare, supernal power. 

Of all she lent her strength, a few 

Shall wear her name as amulet. 
How many more who struggle through, 
Remembering not to whom 't is due, 

Shall still keep memory of the debt ! 

Oh, could we know of life the whole 
Hid record, what an envied place 

Were yours upon the honor scroll, 

Ye faithful sentries of the soul, 
Ye childless mothers of the race ! 



j6o TO A POET AT THE PIANO 



TO A POET AT THE PIANO 

(k. o.) 

"Not all unhappy," said one wise of heart, 
"Who in his spendthrift season learned an art." 
What, then, doth not the Future. keep for you 
Whose ardent days give mastery of two? 

Into your open window by the sea 
What wonder Music came, and Poetry — 
Rhythm from island winds and breakers' might ; 
Grace from the sea grass and the swallows' flight; 

Calm from the summer stars, that seem as near 
As Heaven itself is on a Christmas clear; 
Joy, Love, and Hope ! May these about you throng 
And fill the measure of each two-fold song. 

SlASCONSET, AugUSt, I916. 



TO A STUDENT OF KANT 461 

TO A STUDENT OF KANT 

(written in a volume of the author's poems) 

Isabella Leavenworth, 

What were earth or heaven worth 

To a poet if none heed 

His discourse? But if thou read, 

In the pauses of thy tea, 

Finding some coincidence 

Twixt mine and Kant's philosophy, 

Shall I care if critics claim 

It has neither sound nor sense? 

Ah, this copy has no shame 

Since it holds thy lovely name 

With its brooklet sound of cheer, 

And shall know the sweet surprise 

Of fathoming thy tranquil eyes, 

Seen by it as it by thee. 

As for cents — ah, well — my dear 

Isabella Leavenworth, 

In any auction it may be 

Surely six or seven worth, 

And in some not distant year, — 

When (each within a cozy nook) 

Under dust lie bard and book — 

Asking who "this Johnson" was, 

Men shall call it "rare" because, 

Haply, once 't was owned by thee, 

Isabella Leavenworth. 



462 "AND THEN?" 



"AND THEN?" 

'T is time for a story, as one may know 
From Robbity-bobbity's evening glow, 
His rounder eyes and his open mouth, 
As he begs, "Now, Bonpapa, 'Once on a time.' " 
So off goes our ship for the golden South, 
For parrots and fruits of a tropic clime, 
For wrecks and treasure and tattooed men. 
And at each adventure he cries, "And then?" 

For a breathless tale you must tell to him, 

Robbity-bobbity six and slim. 

And if for a second you happen to pause 

For a missing word or some other cause, 

Or, hushing your voice to a whisper of awe, 

At a thrilling moment venture to stop : 

The hunter in reach of the grizzly's claw, 

Or Jack at the beanstalk's very top, 

Or the knight at the mouth of the dragon's den, 

He will eagerly urge you on — "And then?" 

When I tell how the night-wind gave alarm 
And scared the thief of the Golden Arm ; 
Or how Brer Rabbit his wit would match 
With Brer Fox in the briar patch ; 



"AND THEN?" 463 

Or how the monkeys got over the stream, 

Or the crabs gave a dance (they were so delighted 

That Ma had escaped through the crab-net seam) — 

When the Catfish came that was n't invited — 

He will cock his head like a Jenny Wren 

And shake his curls, and plead, "And then?" 

Oh, Robbity-bobbity looks so wise 

From the deep, dark pools of his sunlit eyes 

As he asks the wherefore of everything : 

"Why grass is green?" "Why sparrows sing?" 

"Why do the squirrels climb the tree?" 

"Why does the food make little boys strong?" 

"What was there there before the sea?" 
But this is his puzzle the whole day long : 

"What 's after the counting? You count again 
Millions and millions more? And then?" 

He 's a philosopher, Robbity-b : 
His fancy goes farther than sages see: 
A sequel to every story's end : 
A journey beyond the road's last bend. 
Let bookmen chatter and try to prove 
There is n't a future life or place : 
Their logical ignorance never could move 
The faith from this boy's transfigured face. 
Tell him that Death is the last we ken : 
He would challenge their doubt with his wise 
"And then?" 



464 THE PLEA OF THE DEFENDANT 



THE PLEA OF THE DEFENDANT 

(on a picture of a muzzled puppy entitled "all I DID 
WAS growl a little bit") 

Yes, here I 'm muzzled, fast and tight, 

From North to South, from West to East — 
I, who have hardly learned to bite, 

And never harmed a human beast. 
They said, because I ran and hid, 

I went to have a private fit; 
They called me mad, when all I did 

Was growl a little bit. 

And when they doused me soaking wet, 

They poked me out with pole and broom, 
And caught me in a horrid net, 

And dragged me to a dirty room. 
And when I panted as I slid, 

They said "Aha!" and kicked and hit 
And used the hose. But all I did 

Was growl a little bit. 

But Freddy, when they went away, 

Brought a big rag to sop me up, 
And lovely waffles on a tray, 

And new milk in a china cup. 



THE PLEA OF THE DEFENDANT 465 

He fed me through the net, dear kid, 
And said, "Now take some more of it." 

I could n't thank him : all I did 
Was growl a little bit. 

It hurts me most to make my bed 

In such a dusty, dirty mess. 
For "cleanliness," my father said, 
"Is next, my dears, to dogliness. 
Now, puppies, do as you are bid," 

He said; "be gentledogs or quit." 
Of course he knew that all I did 

Was growl a little bit. 

Don't get big heads like Cerberus, 

Or bay the Dog-star late at night; 
Be brave, and don't be quarrelous, 

But when you 're forced to fighting, fight." 
I 've sniffed at many a pantry-lid, 

And barked at cats that scream and spit, 
But this time, surely, all I did 

Was growl a little bit. 

There 's a fine place, my mother thinks, 

Where good dogs go when they are dead. 
But my wise father only blinks 

And gnaws his bone, and shakes his head. 
But they agree I '11 not be chid 

Up there, nor muzzled, kicked, or hit, 
If it is sure that all I did 

Was growl a little bit. 



466 CARPE DIEM 

CARPE DIEM 

(to an over-studious young woman) 

Come, dainty maid, come, leave your books, 

And give the day to me ; 
Your knitted brow and distant looks 

For these few hours let be. 

Your beauty shall not always stay, 

Your loveliness delight; 
May even now hastes on her way 

And sunshine leads to night. 

The treasures of your mind and heart, 

Got freely, freely give, 
Nor follow Science when an Art 

Allures you — how to live. 

Upon your laboratory shelf 

Let hidden problems wait; 
Find the sweet mystery of yourself 

Ere it evaporate. 

Come, rest beside the singing stream; 

Give me your rarest hour ; 
Till May, in blue and green, shall dream 

You are another flower. 

May, 1917. 



THE LITTLE ROOM OF DREAMS 467 



THE LITTLE ROOM OF DREAMS 



Next to the shelving roof it stood — 

My boyhood's cozy bed ; 
So near I felt the serried storm 

Go charging o'er my head. 
'T is fifty summers, yet I hear 

The branch against the pane, 
The midnight owl, the thunder crash, 

The rhythm of the rain. 

The golden apples long desired 

Fell thumping from the trees, 
Till Dream transformed them to the fruit 

Of fair Hesperides. 
The owl within his chimney porch 

Became Minerva's own, 
The lightning was the bolt of Jove, 

Each tree a dryad's groan. 

From there the flames of Troy were seen, 

There Salamis was won; 
Now Hannibal would cross the Alps, 

And now Napoleon. 



468 THE LITTLE ROOM OF DREAMS 

On Valley Forge's scene of prayer 
My winter window gave; 

Red Jacket there was eloquent, 
And Osceola, brave. 

Who could divine that from my sill 

Fought wounded Ivanhoe? — 
That there I saw Sir Galahad 

Gleam in the moon, below ? 
Who knew that I was veteran 

Of Bayard's noble strife? — 
That there for many a hapless maid 

I offered up my life? 

There, too, I knew the midnight trance 

Of not unwholesome grief, 
(Since tears for others' sorrow shed 

Bring to our own, relief): 
I felt the lash on Uncle Tom, 

And mourned Don Quixote's fall; 
With David wept for Absalom, 

With Dombey, Little Paul. 

More oft a father's bedtime lore 

So filled with joy the night, 
I woke at dawn from rosy dreams 

Expectant of delight. 
For I had roamed the enchanted wood 

With Puck or Rosalind, 
Or shared with dainty Ariel 

The visions of the wind. 



THE UTILE ROOM OF DREAMS 469 



11 



Another little bed I know — 

With dreams I never knew — 
That holds a maid as brave and fair 

As she Carpaccio drew. 
Her fragrant pillow oft I seek 

To find its magic power, 
As one recalls a day of youth 

By the perfume of a flower. 

The beasts that did my sleep affright 

Are from her fancy hid. 
She finds the jungle full of friends, 

As little Mowgli did. 
For her the vEsop of our day 

Summons his crafty clan. 
The Blue- Bird is her happy goal, 

Her hero, Peter Pan. 

What visions of a spirit world 

About her slumber float, 
Pure as the Swan whose Silver Knight 

Glides in a silver boat ! 
There, too, — most blessed of the dreams 

That have the world beguiled, — 
An Angel with a lily kneels 

To greet the Holy Child. 



£ 



4/0 THE LITTLE ROOM OF DREAMS 

Far be the time when care and toil 

Shall wrest these joys away, 
Whereby this darling of my blood 

Makes yesterday to-day. 
For ah — so near the things that be 

Are to the things that seem — 
Soon I to her, as Youth to me, 

Shall be a thing of dream. 



in 



O Thou, the Father of us all, 

Whose many mansions wait, 
To whose dear welcome each must come 

A child, at Heaven's gate : 
In that fair house not made with hands 

Whatever splendor beams, 
Out of Thy bounty keep for me 

A little room of dreams. 



TO THE AMERICAN POETS OF TO-DAY 47 l 



TO THE AMERICAN POETS 
OF TO-DAY 

Comrades mine of Muse and Land, 
When the wanton war-drum sounded 
And the world fell back astounded 

At a fate so lightly planned, 

Heralds of the Right in song, 

Were you silent at the wrong ? 

Comrades mine of Land and Muse, 
When the mailed and haughty giant 
Crushed the weak but uncompliant, 

Did you falter which to choose? 

Did the cult of Art for Art 

Halt the tempest of your heart? 

No, you left your joy untold, 

Left Love's pondered rhyme impending, 
Left unpraised the summer's blending 

Into roadside blue and gold. 

What were Nature, Love and Song 

In the presence of such wrong ? 

At each Teuton perfidy 

Trembled your swift lines with scorning. 
Lowell's vision, Webster's warning 



£ 



472 TO THE AMERICAN POETS OF TO-DAY 

Made you seers of Liberty : 
Others doubted : you divined 
The awful cross of humankind. 

When the dragon, War, is dead, 

Though the haunting slain be counted 
Like the stars, and grief hath mounted 
Higher than the Jungfrau's head, 
History shall search your song 
To find the measure of the wrong. 

August 8, 1917. 



THE KNIGHTS OF THE NEW CHIVALRY fjz 



THE KNIGHTS OF THE NEW 
CHIVALRY 

What does our soldier take to war? 

So much we cannot give him more : 

Thanks, that in him a sword we draw 

Tempered by liberty and law ; 

Faith in his honor, that is ours — 

A letter writ to baleful powers ; 

Envy, that he it is, not we, 

To welcome peril over-sea ; 

Pride, that our land shall worship long 

At altars by his valor strong ; 

Love, that in absence is more dear 

And made more tender by its fear ; 

His country's praises, spirit-pure, 

In life or death, for him secure : 

These shall go with him, and what more 

Could knightly soldier take to war ? 



XII 
POEMS OF ITALY IN WAR-TIME 



VISIONS OF ITALY 477 

VISIONS OF ITALY 

(AFTER CAPORETTO) 

It was a black and baneful day 

In Chivalry's decline 
When Austria found her devil's-way 

To break Savoia's line. 
11 Five nights from now," the braggarts say, 

" In Venice we shall dine." 

The true world's hope again burned low, 

And doubt grew pale to see 
The havoc of the wily blow, 

And warned of worse to be ; 
But my Italian heart cried " No," 

And dreamed of victory. 

And while our very breath was hushed, 

And few were tearless-eyed 
To think of all the beauty crushed 

And all that might betide 
Across two seas my fancy rushed 

As lover to his bride. 



478 VISIONS OF ITALY 



A VISION OF BEAUTY 

From Asolo's uplifted land 
I watched with pensive pain 

The Evening's soft and shadowy hand 
Caress Venetia's plain, 

To where Piave's rushing sand 
Denned the Teuton stain. 

Above the wide-horizoned heath 
Nine-towered Treviso loomed, 

And Padua's seven domes, whereneath 
Her gentle saint is tombed; 

While, like a lily from its sheath, 
San Marco's tower bloomed. 

Sweet-syllabled, the vesper bells 

A maze of music wound, 
From towns whose very naming tells 

A rosary of sound, 
While grapes and lingering asphodels 

Still perfumed all the ground. 

And, last, I heard Bassano's toll 
(That drowns the Brenta's roar) ; 



VISIONS OF ITALY 479 

And there was something in its roll 

Was never there before: 
A tocsin to the patriot soul 

The Western breezes bore. 

It was as though the bell were sent 

To wake the sleeping land, 
And cry " O Italy, sore-spent! 

Now let thy legions stand: 
No farther inch of fair content 

Yield to the spoiler's hand. 

" Look on thy beauty and be proud 

As partner of God's plan, — 
Half by His mighty thought endowed 

And half by Him through Man: 
The Alps, whose incense is the cloud, 

The temples Love began. 

" Long shall outlinger human shame 

The snow-clad eminence; 
But these, that breathe His holy name — 

The spirit's monuments — 
Shall He who wrought with thee their fame 

Not share in their defense? " 



480 VISIONS OF ITALY 



A VISION OF ANGELS 

Then there appeared with robe and crown 

A host in heavenly guise, 
As all the angels had come down 

From Dante's Paradise; 
The thought of some Italian town 

Gave glory to their eyes. 

The sunset pierced them through with gold 

And many-colored fire, 
Till they as beautifully were stoled 

As Fra Beato's choir: 
A cloud of witnesses of old 

Called mortals to aspire. 

And while I wondered at the sight 

I heard a soft ado 
That, as though chanted by the light, 

To this clear anthem grew; 
" Fight ye for Freedom and for Right, 

But fight for Beauty, too." 

And as they sang this high command 
In evening's growing shade, 



VISIONS OF ITALY 481 

The Eastward pointing of each hand 

A myriad gesture made; 
I turned, to see the skyey land 

Was all in rose arrayed. 

The Alps, the clouds, the near lagoon, 

Prolonged the heavenly scene, 
And the last breath of afternoon 

Lit up the brown lateen, 
Where lay, impatient for the moon, 

The Adriatic's Queen. 



A VISION OF THE DEAD 

A stir recalled me to the West 

When lo! what change I saw! 
Not crowned with haloes were the blessed 

But helmeted with awe; 
The robes were warriors' cloaks; out-pressed 

Each sword toward Austria. 

Alike had been th' angelic fold 

As rose to rose may be, 
But now the patriot ranks out-rolled 

As far as eye could see — 



482 VISIONS OF ITALY 

Souls that had begged from Heaven the mould 
Of their mortality. 

Among the militant array 

I saw the prophet grim 
Who showed Earth Hell. (Ah, Earth to-day 

A worse Hell shows to him!) 
His eyes were Southward turned, as they 

Would see Ravenna dim. 

Near him, with face that ne'er knew youth, 

Savonarola came — 
He who dared tell a Prince the truth 

And mirrored royal shame; 
(Would that one tyrant without ruth 

Might see his evil fame!) 

I saw within the brooding throng 

The makers of the State — 
Exiles, and martyrs of old wrong, 

And unforgotten great, 
Whose names live in Italian song 

And votive street and gate. 

I knew by one deep-musing head 
Mazzini, free of guile, 



VISIONS OF ITALY 483 

And marked, among the living dead, 

Cavour's defensive smile, 
And, still by Garibaldi led, 

The Thousand, file on file. 

Most loyal of his Court, the King 

Pressed forward to the front, 
As though against the foe to fling 

The courage he was wont, 
Like a huge mastiff coveting 

The danger of the hunt. 

How fair this country must have seemed 

To those who were its cost! 
How proud of what their blood redeemed, 

How grieved for what was lost! 
How eagerly would they have streamed 

Where clashing banners tossed! 

Now in their larger vision stood 

Their country's new distress, 
Till Earth became the greater good 

And Paradise the less. 
(Welcome a second death if 'twould 

Defend such loveliness!) 



484 VISIONS OF ITALY 

And as, at dawning of the night, 
The pageantry withdrew, 

From Po to farthest Dolomite 
Their anthem rose anew: 

" Fight ye for Freedom and for Right, 
But fight for Beauty, too." 



A VISION OF HEROES 

Then, through the mellow twilight air, 

There falls another sight: 
A thousand white-winged pilots fare 

High in the sunset light, 
And all that men or devils dare 

Is centered in their might. 

These neighbors of the stars, who hold 

The bridle of the gale, 
Whose courage, in the zenith cold, 

Is still their stoutest mail — 
To whom should fitlier be told 

That freedom shall not fail? 

They know the cruel Teuton heart 
That made their mothers weep, 



VISIONS OF ITALY 485 

That nothing sown, in life or art, 

One now may surely reap, 
For, flying over church and mart, 

They think of Rheims and Ypres. 

With joy they view Siena's towers, 

And Pisa's treasures three, 
And the dear City of the Flowers, 

And Milan's tracery, 
And think " This Beauty still is ours 

Because our land is free." 

Then, with an old-new pride astart, 

On Venice they look down, 
On the one miracle of Art 

More fair than its renown, 
Where every poet leaves a part 

Of his own laurel crown. 

And from the organ-pipes of light 

That did her pathways strew, 
And from her domes, now drowned in night, 

They hear the prayer anew: 
" Fight ye for Freedom and for Right, 

But fight for Beauty, too." 



486 VISIONS OF ITALY 



ENVOI 

O daring travelers of the blast, 
Saw ye the heavenly band 

That bade their Italy stand fast? 
Shall they not to her hand 

Send all the strength of all the Past 
To save your Holy Land ? 



THE TRAITORS OF CAPORETTO 487 



THE TRAITORS OF CAPORETTO 

A LEGEND OP TO-DAY * 

Whose feet are these that plod all day 

The moon-white roads of Italy — 
Strange prisoners of their guards in gray — 
While children hoot and mongrels bay? 
Who may the miscreants be ? 

Not theirs the gait of those who till ; 

They tread the paces of the court; 
And, though they bear some shameful ill, 
They yet were noble once, and still 

Have trace of noble port. 

See, on the shapely wrists well-born, 
The clanking gyves, as they come nigh. 

* It should be said that while the main fact herein set forth 
was strenuously asserted by no fewer than four credible sources, 
it has been as strenuously denied by Italian officials since the 
lines were written. Therefore, in order to divest the poem of 
the claim of historical accuracy, I have added this sub-title. 
— R. U. J. 



488 THE TRAITORS OF CAPORETTO 

And how contemptuously torn 
The missing gold once bravely worn 
To please a woman's eye. 

Can these be Austria's boasted blood, 

Debased for some new cruelty — 
Her honor draggled in the mud, 
Her will swept aimless on the flood 
Of Prussian perfidy? 

No, read the riddle as they go: 

Upon their backs once straight and proud, 
One word — that Italy may know 
Who dealt her the betraying blow — 

Cries " Traditore " loud. 

These showed on Caporetto's day 
Against their land a Judas-league 

With those who scorn the knightly way 

Of manly strength in open fray, 
To conquer by intrigue. 

Then was unstrung as brave a bow 
As e'er o'ershot the walls of Troy. 



THE TRAITORS OF CAPORETTO 489 

The world was wondering still, when lo! 
The conquered Alps, the conquered foe 
Turned swift against Savoy. 

Not Teuton valor did the deed: 

These undissevered tongues it was 
That spread the fatal lie, whose speed 
Outruns the rout, while thousands bleed 

To give the treason pause. 

No knightly heritage could save 

These whilom gentlemen of ease, 
Who, adding cunning to the knave, 
Cried not " Avanti " to their brave, 

But poisoned words of peace. 

They pass, from all the jeers and groans, 
Whom other groans and jeers shall greet — 

Now struck by Tuscan clods and stones, 

Now spat upon by Umbrian crones, 
And Rome is yet to meet ! 

There crowds shall prod them on their way 

With oaths ; and women near their time 
Against the Evil Eye shall pray, 



490 THE TRAITORS OF CAPORETTO 

And patriot statues wreathed with bay 
Shall clamor of their crime. 

And one impatient dawn shall see 

Each face turned toward a fortress wall, 
And at a shout of musketry 
Their all — except their infamy — 
Shall perish as they fall. 

April, 1918. 



TO ITALY, 491 



TO ITALY* 

Mother of Noble Minds ! How shall we pay 
The homage of our love — nay what withhold? 
Thou Bride of Learning, never false or cold; 
Hostess of Beauty to the world, no day 

Uncheered by thee along our saddest way; 
Mother of Men ardent and wise and bold, 
Who gave to Art new life, to Law new mould, 
And unto Freedom new, immortal bay. 

Mother of Great Adventurers, air or sea! 
Columbus, voyaging to undreamed good, 
Like Man's brave soul; and he, of thy new brood 

The farthest picket in the vague of space. 
What height or hindrance ever daunted thee 
Whose forward spirit debtors every race! 

* First published in the programme of the Benefit for the 
Blinded Soldiers of Italy, New York, October 12, 1918. 



492 ITALIA REDENTA 



ITALIA REDENTA 

ON HEARING THAT THE ITALIAN FLAG WAS AGAIN 
FLYING OVER TRENT AND TRIESTE 

Till yesterday 'twas " Italy Unredeemed." 
At Freedom's altar, by that sacred phrase, 
Striplings, now grandsires, made their faithful vow. 
Henceforth those words are History's, to be kept 
Like some torn battleflag of Savoia's line, 
While the new songs and music trumpet forth 
" Italia Redenta." 

The day of victory be the martyr's day ! — 
Not the grim morning when Battisti's soul 
Into the Darkness marched — to find it Light; 
But this glad moment that his faith foresaw 
When Alps to Adriatic should resound 
With rapture, and the hills proclaim in fire 
" Italia Redenta." 

Now, when against the mother-heart there beats. 
Incredibly, the heart of each lost child, 



ITALIA REDENTA 493 

The Adriatic to the Alps replies 
With one brave name, Sauro. Could the foe, 
Learned in torture only, have divined 
How soon that name would blend in the new cry, 
"Italia Redenta"? 

O Italy, thy martyrs are our own, 
And the whole world's redeemed again by Love. 
Nothing more sacred is than life except 
The joy of its surrender. Mother of grief, 
Help us forget not what it cost to write 
In blood across thy borderland the words 
" Italia Redenta." 

November 10, 1918. 



XIII 
LATEST WAR-TIME POEMS 



THE SHIP OF LIBERTY 497 



THE SHIP OF LIBERTY 



LINES ON THE LAUNCHING OF THE " NEWBURGH," 

SEPTEMEER 2, 1918 



O Ship of Liberty! 

Our hearts go forth with thee. 

Not with the thunder of guns 
Shalt thou assault the Huns; 
Not through the winter drear 
Shalt thou keep vigil clear 
Where lies the caged foe, 
His fleet a futile show; 
Not thine to leap the wave 
With instinct of the brave, 
Hunting the hidden craft 
That aims the coward shaft. 

No; but not less thine aid 
To Freedom's cause is made. 
Across the winter waste 
Thy eager breath shall haste 
To bear our heart-sent food 



498 THE SHIP OF LIBERTY 

To Freedom's brotherhood; 
To take thy share of souls * 
That Freedom war-ward rolls — 
The strange, new tide that breaks 
On France's shore and shakes 
From their foundation stones 
The tottering Teuton thrones. 

O Ship of Liberty! 

Our hearts go forth with thee. 



THE FLAG WE LOVE SO WELL 499 

THE FLAG WE LOVE SO WELL 

(marching song) 

March along, march along, with a song 
For the land of the brave and the free. 

Let the people throng to save from wrong 
The world and the world to be, 
The better world to be. 

Chorus : 

On, on, by dark or dawn, 
'Neath the constellation 
Of a mighty nation; 
The stars of night are not more bright 
Than the flag we love so well, 
The flag we love so well. 

Let us fight with our might for the best 

Till tyrant kings shall cease, 
Till East or West, there be none oppressed 

In the coming Age of Peace, 
The coming Age of Peace. 

Chorus: On, on, by dark or dawn, etc. 



500 THE FLAG WE LOVE SO WELL 

Every kiss that we miss shall abide 

As a seal of the joy to be, 
And the mother or bride shall march by our side 

An Angel of Liberty, 
An Angel of Liberty. 

Chorus: On, on, by dark or dawn, etc. 

To the strong, like a song from the grave 

The voices of martyrs call : 
" Go forth ye and save the weak and the slave 

In the brotherhood of all, 
The brotherhood of all." 

Chorus: On, on, by dark or dawn, etc. 

May, 1918. 



INTERLUDE 501 

INTERLUDE 

(in war-time) 

I thought that War held all my mind, 
That wrong and sorrow world-bespread, 

Had made mine eyes to beauty blind, 
And all the gleeful gods were dead — 

Till came Allegra floating by, 

Joy in her smile, Youth in her eye. 

Tell me the secret of her voice 

That with a passing commonplace 
Could make my stranger heart rejoice 

As she were sent to cheer the race. 
— No, rather tell me why to me 
It must remain a mystery. 

Not love she brought, but something more — 

No private good reserved for two, 
But treasure lavished from the store 

Of the loved dead — we know not who. 
From what far past her power to bless 
By muted notes of tenderness? 



502 INTERLUDE 

Oft shall I see 'twixt eye and book 
The grace of each enchanting line, 

The summons of her backward look, 
And that I followed not, repine. 

Resolve my problem, if you know, 

Which were the fault, to stay or go? 

Ah! sometimes, though the tempest lower, 
The very lightning may reveal 

Through cloven dark a blithesome flower 
And make us live by what we feel, 

And leave a heart's-ease rich and warm 

As lasting memory of the storm. 

February, 1918. 



THE MARNE 503 



THE MARNE 

(it is a curious coincidence that attela and the 
kaiser were both turned back at the marne ) 

Down through dim centuries of shame, 

While worthier names live not, 
How faithful is the evil fame 

By Attila begot! 
How Aquileia flaunts his name, 

Though hers is nigh forgot ! 

But now appears a shade malign 

Eclipsing the eclipse — 
A name, of horror such a sign 

It grates upon the lips — 
Whom History down her endless line 

Shall scourge with scorpion whips. 

Was it but chance Marne's slender stream 
Saw both these tyrants foiled — 

That here the Hun's imperial dream 
Twice from the foe recoiled, 



504 THE MARNE 

As from a cliff the wave's extreme 
To which the tide has toiled ? 

Did memory of Marne's renown 
Make of its name a shield 

When the new Attila swept down 
By hill and startled field 

And thought to summon Paris town 
Her keys of might to yield? 

Or — as rapt witnesses averred — 
Loomed there against the sky 

A host of heaven, as white as curd, 
That, leaning from on high, 

Gave strength against the swarming herd 
'Neath God's impatient eye? 

River of Liberty, now to be 

New comrade of the Seine 
That bore Jeanne's ashes tenderly 

Down to the eager main: 
Marne, that henceforth shall add a plea 

To the "Marseillaise" refrain! 

Once more returns to these green banks 
The shifting line of hope; 



THE MARNE 505 

Once more the earth's relumined ranks 

With hosts of darkness cope; 
Once more to heaven go up the thanks 

And prayers of those who grope. 

God of Just Battles ! knowing well 

Our purpose and Thy plan, 
Here, where beleaguered legions fell 

To save the world from clan, 
Oh, give us victory, lest Hell 

Unteach us love of Man. 

July 8, 1918. 



5 o6 TO THE RETURNING BRAVE 



TO THE RETURNING BRAVE 

Victorious knights without reproach or fear — 

As close as man is ever to the stars ! — 
Our welcome met you on the ocean drear 

In loud, free winds and sunset's golden bars. 
Here, at our bannered gate, 
Love, honor, laurels wait. 
Though you be humble, we are proud, and, in your stead, 
elate. 

Fame shall not tire to tell, no sordid stain 

Lies on your purpose, on your record none. 
No broken word, no violated fane, 

No winning one would wish had ne'er been won. 
You were our message sent 
To the torn Continent: 
That with its hope and faith henceforth our faith and 
hope are blent. 

You of our new, our homespun chivalry, 
Here is your welcome — in all women's eyes, 



TO THE RETURNING BRAVE 507 

The envious handclasp, romping children's glee, 
Music, and color, and glad tears that rise. 
Here every voice of Peace 
Shall bruit our joy, nor cease 
To vie with shotless guns to shout your blameless vic- 
tories. 



But, though you are a part of all men's pride, 
And from your fortitude new nations date, 
Oh, lay not yet your sacred steel aside, 
But save it for the still-imperiled State. 
You who have bound a girth 
Of new hope round the Earth, 
Should its firm bond be loosened here, what were your 
struggle worth? 

A redder peril dogs the path of war; 

With fire and poison wanton children play; 
And fickle crowds toward new pretenders pour 
Who summon demons they can never lay. 
Already we can hear, 
Importunately near, 
The snarling of the savage crew, half fury and half 
jeer. 



508 TO THE RETURNING BRAVE 

Then hang not up your arms till you have taught 

The ungrateful guests about our hearth and board 
That in your swift encounter has been wrought 
A keener edge to our reluctant sword. 
You who know well the price 
Of the great sacrifice, 
Your courage saved us once; pray Heaven, it need not 
save us twice. 

And those who come not back, who mutely lie 

By Marne or Meuse or tangled Argonne wood: 
Were it to lose the gain, (let them reply!) 
Would we recall their spirits if we could? 
Open your ranks and save 
Their places with the brave, 
That Liberty may greet you all, her shields of land 
and wave. 

January 4, 1919. 



THE GOAL 509 



THE GOAL 

Not war for the sake of war, 
But war that war may cease. 

Not peace for the sake of peace, 
But to open each rusted door 

That since the world began 

Has prisoned the soul of man. 



510 "LISTEN TO YO' GYARDEN ANGEL 



"LISTEN TO Y0> GYARDEN ANGEL" 

A NEGRO SPIRITUAL 



Recommembeh what I's saying 
Ebery day, at wuck or playin', 

I kin heah de sperrits call ; 
An' deir cla'rness do astoun' me, 
But de common folks aroun' me 

Dey cyant heah de wuds at all. 
An* sometimes it am de debble, 
Wid his voice way up in treble, 

Sort o' trailin' me along; 
An' sometimes — I beg yo' pardon 
It's de Angel fum de Gyarden 

Jes' a-warnin' me fum wrong. 

Chorus: 

Oh, listen to yo' Gyarden Angel, 
Oh, listen to yo' Gyarden Angel, 



LISTEN TO YO' GYARDEN ANGEL 51 1 

Oh, listen to yo' Gyarden Angel, 
An' yo' nebber kin go wrong. 



Now, it's usu'l in de mawnin', 
When I feels so spry and scornin', 

Dat I disremembers Gord; 
An' de ole blue-debble jay-bird 
Says, " Come on an' be a gay bird," 

Till he mos'ly gits me floored. 
But it's offen to'd de night-time, 
Twix' de sun an' candlelight-time, 

When de jay-bird's gone to res', 
I kin heah de whipporwilliams 
Singin' like a hundred millioms 

Gyarden angels in de Wes'. 

Chorus: 

Oh, listen to yo' Gyarden Angel, etc. 

m 

In de midnight when I's dreaming 
An' I wakes all scyart an' screaming 



512 LISTEN TO YO' GYARDEN ANGEL 

'Caze de debble got me, sho, 
An' de sperrits tries to ha'nt me, 
An' ma troubles tease an' ta'nt me, 

An' I cyant go sleep no mo', — 
Den I heahs de hahps a-ringin' 
Like as all de stahs wuz singm', 

An' ma narves gits calm an' sof, 
Fer I knows de Heabenly Gyarden 
Sends ma Angel down, a-wahdin' 

All de ebil sperrits off. 

Chorus: 

Oh, listen to yo> Gyarden Angel, etc. 



TO AN UNKNOWN POET 513 



TO AN UNKNOWN POET 

I read far into the silent night 

The book of a bard unknown, 
And, rapt in the songs he did indite, 

Forgot to write my own; 

But the time he has stolen from my Muse 

His shall give back to me 
When, stirred by the gain 1 can never lose, 

I hold them in memory. 

1918. 



5 I4 PHILOPCENA 



PHILOPCENA 

Annexe thought it royal fun 
The pretty game I taught her, 

And ere my lesson quite was done 
With " yes or no " I caught her. 

Bright spirit, in whose glances sweet 
Dwell joy and wit as tenants, 

With " give or take " when next we meet 
My lips shall claim the penance. 

1918. 



THE CALL TO THE RESERVISTS 515 



THE CALL TO THE RESERVISTS 

This was the message under the sea 
Sent by the Motherland, Italy: 

" Sons of the isle where the Thousand broke 

The chain that bound to the Austrian yoke; 

Men of the Apennines, free and strong, 

Whose grandsires suffered the Austrian wrong; 

You who were born in Vesuvius' sight, 

Who learned from your fathers how to fight; 

Romans, proud of your pedigree; 

Genoese, playmates of the sea; 

You from towns on the Tuscan hills, 

And you whom the dream of Venice thrills; 

Exiles all of you, many or few, 

Back to the land of the sunlit blue 

Come, for your Italy needeth you! 

"For now at last is the time to smite 
The foe on his stolen Alpine height; 
To hunt his warships in their lair; 



516 THE CALL TO THE RESERVISTS 

To launch new navies in the air. 
God holds the issue; we but know 
Here parts the road where the nations go 
Toward hell or the far millennium ! — 
And Italy's time to choose has come." 

Then answered the sons of Italy: 
"Whatever the cost of thy choice may be, 
Land of our love, we stand with thee." 

And some fought under the crown and green, 
And a host 'neath the Stars-and-Stripes were seen 
As the New World sprang to the side of the Old. 
And so, when the tale of the war is told, 
You shall find, of the legions of Liberty, 
There was never another braver than he, 
The swarthy reservist from over the sea. 

April, 19 1 9. 



ARMENIA 517 



ARMENIA 

Of all the nations new and free — 
The remnant seed of cruelty — 
Who has a better right to be 
A foster-child of Liberty 

Than thou, 

Armenia ? 
Lift up with hope thy stricken brow — 
See! all the West sends cheer to thee, 

Armenia. 

Oh, thousand years of wrong and scorn ! 
Oh, night that seemed to have no morn! 
Martyr of cross and spear and thorn, 
Thy path to Calvary shall be worn 

No more, 

Armenia ! 
Last of the fateful brood of war, 
The world stands still till thou be born, 

Armenia. 



518 ARMENIA 

By Ararat the blood-stained snow 
No more shall lie; Euphrates' flow 
Unmoaning to the sea shall go. 
Time shall restring the harp of woe 

To willowy song, 

Armenia, 
And memory shall make thee strong 
And thou what thou hast dreamed shalt know, 

Armenia. 

1919. 



THE SPOILS OF WAR 519 



THE SPOILS OF WAR * 

What does our soldier bring from war? 

So much we cannot covet more : 

Acclaim of victor, both by those 

His victor-comrades, and his foes; 

A sword with bay and myrtle wreathed, 

In honor drawn, in honor sheathed; 

The love of children who intone 

His country's anthem with their own; 

The gratitude of many a land 

Whose tongue he ne'er shall understand; 

The prayers of alien knees that bend 

In faiths he cannot comprehend; 

And benedictions that shall be 

Bequeathed to far posterity 

By those who feel, but do not know, 

What they to the Great Rescue owe. 

These are the spoils he bears; what more 

Could knightly soldier bring from war? 

April, 191 9. 
* See page 473. 



520 MAXIMA CARTA 



MAXIMA CARTA 



(INSCRIBED TO PRESIDENT WILSON, CHAMPION AND 
BEARER OP THE COVENANT OP NATIONS) 

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace ! " 

Hail, newest charter of the hopes of Man! — 
Greater than every scroll that hitherto 
Has pledged our safety — many against few, 
Few against many. Seems it but a span 

Toward Freedom's goal what Runnymede began. 
The pact and pattern that our fathers drew, 
Incorporate here, is glorified anew, 
And steals the waiting world American. 

Kings are no more, but only names of kings: 

Henceforth are crowned the States that serve the 

sphere. 
Come, patient Heaven, with healing in thy wings! 
Haste, Choir of Earth, with your harmonious chord! 
Madness shall yield to Order. . . . Who shall fear 
When all the world gives bond to break the unhal- 
lowed sword? 



THE FOUNTAINS OF ASHOKAN 521 



THE FOUNTAINS OF ASHOKAN 

THE AERATION OF NEW YORK'S WATER SUPPLY HAS 
ADDED AN EXQUISITE AND ASTONISHING FEATURE OF 
BEAUTY TO THE LOWER CATSKILLS. 

Henceforth what dream can e'er efface 
Ashokan's pure and irised throng? 

Not Dryads, nor the Dryads' grace, 
Not Naiads, nor the Naiads' song. 

Like ghosts of cedars cool and tall — 

They mount close-clustered, row on row — 

As white as when the moonbeams fall 
Upon the newly fallen snow. 

Yet they are not a thing of night, 
But souls of nymphs that stand by day 

Poised for a fellowship of flight 

While with their robes the breezes play. 

They live in light — not spirits dire 
That haunt the darkness — not to harm, 



522 . THE FOUNTAINS OF ASHOKAN 

But like a massed angelic choir 
With song of benison and charm. 

Their beauty, to the verge of pain, 
Dwells in my memory. I glean 

A song above the heard refrain, 
An unseen spirit in the seen; 

For not of Death their waters speak 
But Life, these glad Ashokan towers: 

In heavenly ministry they seek 

The City's human weeds and flowers. 

Ah, could they flash their song and sight 
To house and hovel as they pass, 

How urban toil and care and blight 
Would quaff new beauty in the glass! 

September, 1919. 



THE ONLY DOLL IN THE VALLEY 523 



THE ONLY DOLL IN THE VALLEY 

1 
Up near the sources of Po, 
Where the lakes reflect the snow 
And Italy touches heaven, 
There's a little girl of seven, 
A cara bella figlia, 
With the tinkling name of Ottilia : 
Hair like the blue-black night, 
And a brown, pomegranate skin, 
And a joy, to the sun akin, 
That war has failed to blight. 
She lives in a little alley 
Of stone, near the big casino, 
And against her gown of merino, 
Sewed up like the good Bambino, 
She carries a rare delight — 
The only doll in the valley. 

n 

What matter the numberless cracks 
In its little noddle of wax, 



524 THE ONLY DOLL IN THE VALLEY 

Or that one eye from its socket 
Lies in Ottilia's pocket ? — 
That kisses have worn the paint 
Till the red of the lips is faint ? 
For this is the children's saint, 
And all the girls in Bezzecca 
Flock to Ottilia's alley 
As the Moslems flock to Mecca. 
And she with a heart of gold 
Lends them the doll to hold; 
And, of all the wistful eyes, 
Which speak of the greater lack — 
Hers who begs for the prize, 
Or hers who gives it back? 
Oh, yes, they have other needs, 
Those patient waifs of war — 
Victims of noble deeds 
In regions near or far 
Done by their gallant sires, 
Long sworn at Freedom's fires: 
Milk? — they've forgotten its look! 
Shoes ? — but the clogs are strong. 
Coal? — ah, there's little to cook, 
And the winter nights are long. 
So when the peasants appear 



THE ONLY DOLL IN THE VALLEY 525 

In search of some common cheer 

At the scanty market rally 

Of the Val de Ledro drear, 

What pleasure for the girls 

To be for an hour beguiled 

By the cheeks and the flaxen curls 

Of Ottilia's foster-child — 

The only doll in the valley ! 

m 

Children, rich with the spoil 

Of many a Christmas gone, 

Who know neither hunger nor toil 

And revel in lace and lawn : 

Girls of America! think 

Of the debt that your country owes 

To the little dark daughters of those 

Who fought for us and fell 

On the frozen mountain brink, 

Or the hot Venetian plain, 

In the homesick sound of the vesper bell, 

Their loss your children's children's gain. 

From the corner where you keep 

Your cradled pets asleep, 

Give, for the friends of Ottilia, 



526 THE ONLY DOLL IN THE VALLEY 

Your favorite " Mimi " or " Sally "; 
And if on the ocean it misses 
The warmth of your bed-time kisses, 
It will find no lack of others 
From Italy's little mothers. 
Give, till from Trent to Sicilia 
There shall be some cheer through the winter drear 
For the girls in every valley. 

October 12, 1919. 



CECILE 527 



CECILE 



What do I see in Cecile's eyes 

More than the first divine surprise? 

The olden dignity of Spain 

Made gentle by remembered pain; 

The mountain-courage of Savoy; 

Rich vintage of Italian joy; 

The poised serenity of France, 

Gift of a high inheritance; 

And, best of all, — from what deep spring? 

Such sympathy with suffering 

As takes from sorrow half the sting. 

Surely to these soft eyes 'twas given 
To bring authentic word from Heaven — 
For thus their sweet suggestions run: 
That Love and Duty are but one. 



July 2, 1917. 



528 CECILE 



n 

Here, on this upland farm, 

In the fair mid of May, 
Where bees in golden swarm 

Melodiously stray, 
How sweet the orchard bloom, 

The honeysuckle scent, 
The lilac's soft perfume, 

In one warm fragrance blent! 
But something sweeter still 

Exhales from garden ways — 
A soul unsoiled by ill, 

The darling of our praise. 

Who heard her tones' caress, 

Or saw her smiling eyes, 
Ne'er spoke of happiness 

As a lost paradise. 
We weep, but we rejoice, 

Who knew her spirit's spell — 
The angel in her voice 

That told us all is well. 
In every tempest, calm; 

Sure, when our doubt would grope; 



CECILE 529 



To all our sorrow, balm, 
The darling of our hope. 

We place upon her now 

The symbols she loved best — 
One cross upon her brow, 

Another on her breast. 
Mother to suffering men, 

Brief her own motherhood. 
Her courage served her then 

That had so much withstood. 
Hark! from her window-tree 

I hear the mourning dove; 
Not gentler it than she, 

The darling of our love. 



May 11, 1918. 



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